


Phaing, the Zhrau, and secrets

by Jon_of_Narva



Series: The Zhrau [1]
Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-03-08 16:24:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 81,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13462008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jon_of_Narva/pseuds/Jon_of_Narva
Summary: This is a collection of smaller stories, so don't be afraid of the word-count.Yes, they are all related and if you read them at all you should probably do it in order to avoid confounding yourself.Phaing is the first of a new race called Zhrau to be met by the Union. While not looking so very different from humanity, they are starkly alien in almost every other way. They posses an intellectual ferocity that seems at odds with their passionate way of life, and none of them illustrates this better than Phaing herself... who seems to be used as a pawn by both sides in the Great Game of Galactic dominance.Phaing  has a feral innocence that makes it hard for her to understand the subtle play of power going on all around her, and in the long run it could well be that the people on the Orville are her only hope.... and before the Zhrau are done with them, the Orville may be the Union's only hope, too.





	1. All's hell that ends well

**Author's Note:**

> \- I hope to avoid messing with Cannon, and with only 12 episodes at this point there isn't much leeway, so I have used a new character and species mess around with instead.
> 
> (how's it working so far?)

The Orville; a member of an exceptionally attractive class of ships. The outline is smooth, well-proportioned, and has a certain amount of elegance to it.  
_Inside_ that ship, however… things can get a bit messy.

For example, about eight months ago;

 

 

“You call that art?” Captain Ed Mercer exclaimed, the toe of his boot nudging at an ugly, dust-covered stone.

“Captain, it _will_ be if you -“

“You brought five hundred kilos of rubble onto my ship and piled it here? This is where we eat!” The Captain could not believe his eyes. The pile of gray rocks was not inside the mess hall, exactly, but right next to the hatchway leading into it, and that was bad enough. The mess was waist high and seemed to be crumbling under his very gaze.

“A mistaken delivery!” John Lamar hastened to assure him. “Those Rallzkin are pretty grim, even when they are in a _good_  mood, and…”

“And?”

Lamar lowered his voice, leaning closer to the captain “And when I wrangled such a great deal on all this diamond they got downright grouchy. So, they dumped it here just because they heard that I was inside. I’ll take care of it, just give me ten minutes and you’ll never know it was here.”

“When did we have Rallzkin delivery boys running around on my shi-“ The Captain blinked, and looked at the pile again. “That’s all diam ** _nnff_**?!” The last word out of his mouth was muffled, Lamar had used both hands to cover the Captain’s mouth. A second later he pulled back, making desperate shushing motions and a plea for forgiveness with his hands.

“Yes, but its not like what people will think!" Diamond was one of the few substances that were not replicated by Union mass-converters, which made it somewhat rare and valuable. "I mean look at it, this is not gem-quality stuff. Its badly flawed and pretty impure, but if I can mold it just right… you see, that’s where the ‘art’ comes in.“

The ship’s comms sounded at just that moment.

“Captain to the bridge.” Commander Greyson called out over the intercom, “we may have a fight to break up.”

The announcement made Mercer even more frustrated. “On the bridge?”

She sighed. “No. I have a Movsoorian transport in the next system over, in P5k-881, its just ahead of us. If you run you should get here just as we are pulling in. They are asking for help and say that some sort of warship is closing in on them.”

“I’ll be right there.” Mercer has just one thing to say to Lamar “You have three minutes to get yourself to engineering.”

“But… but!” The Captain was already gone by the second ‘but’, and Lamar looked around helplessly. A messmate was passing through his field of vision just inside the hatchway, pushing a wheeled table ahead of him. “Hey! Hi, come here, how would you like to have the Chief engineer of this ship owing you a _big_  favor?”  
 

 

On the bridge the view screen was showing part of the interior of the nearby transport, and a pair of aliens that have very smooth features and bullet-like heads. There was something a bit … off … about them.

The Captain entered at a jog and, instead of taking his seat, he crouched over Greyson's shoulder to ask; “Mavsaurians? Are they even part of the Union?”

One of the bullet-headed beings on screen huffed. “We applied for membership last month! And we are pronounced _Movsoorian_ , if you please.”

Greyson gave him a prim smile as the Captain winced. “The audio is on?”

“And our hearing is exceptional." the Alien continued. "Must we explain again what our situation is?”

“You didn’t do much explaining _yet_ , nothing that I would call very convincing.” Greyson responded with equal sharpness. “Captain Lopyl, this is Captain Greyson.”

“Time is short! You must help us, we are being pursued by a Zhrau pirate of the worst sort. And if you need convincing, look here.” He gestured to the other Movsoorian, and then again impatiently when that one hesitated. A doorway briefly opened into a dim room where several aliens of various sorts were huddled. They have little in common except for one thing; they were all small children. They took one look in the direction of the view screen and yelped, backing away.

The Captain had just settled into his chair, he bounced right out again holding his hands out to them. “No no, don’t be afraid, we are here to help you!”

“That will do.” The door closed again and Lopyl faced the crew of the Orville, taking a few steps forward until his plain face took up most of the view. “We are transporting refugees from a pirate attack, and I suspect that they saw too much if the pirates are still chasing them. You must slow them down, we only _just_ fixed our drives."

“We’ll do all that we can-“

“Thank you.” Lopyl nodded and said to someone out of view. “Now!”

The feed to the view screen was suddenly cut, and their large and lumpy ship went super-luminal in an instant, vanishing from view in a rainbow streak that was far more attractive than the transport itself.

“Well, at least he said 'thank you'.” The Captain shook his head. “How much time have we got?”

Malloy was quick to answer, his fingers flying over his console. “Less than a minute…. _way_ less! I’ve never seen anything move like that on thrust. Its clearing the asteroid field and burnin' hard, straight for us.”

“Sound the alert." _Lamar, you’d better be there already_.  Mercer looked to the console and clenched his fist nervously. "So, what do we know about these….”

“ _Zhrau_?” Greyson helpfully repeated.

“Yes, and quickly.” Mercer turned to her and leaned over, speaking more softly to Greyson; “How do you do that? Is it like some kind of photographic memory, the audio version?”

Before she could say anything, Isaac turned from his station to answer the question he had been asked; “All information indicates that the Zhrau are ruthless, clever, and absolutely deadly.” He tilted his head towards the Chief of Security. “Isn’t that right?”

“Any ties between that species and mine is more myth than fact!” Kitan glared over her shoulder at Isaac, and than remembered that she was trying to stare down a pair of eyes that were completely artificial. “And, very random. We were hoping that the Union would not encounter them yet, not until the Krill had been dealt with. The Zhrau can be… wicked.”

The Captain grimaced. “Pirates generally are. Okay, clever and ruthless, what can you tell me about their ship?” The Captain made an odd gesture just then, as if he was reaching for something that isn’t there. “Don’t you wish we had seat-belts at times like these?”

Kitan was puzzled by what she saw on her panel. “Trying to get a visual now… which isn’t easy for some reason. Oh, _crap_ , it’s painted flat black! Who _does_ that? Here we go, huh, scans aren’t easy either, its as if its armored or something.”

The view screen showed a roughly octagonal nose pointed directly at them, a matte-black ship that was only visible thanks to the plume of blueish plasma pushing it along. It had thick wing-roots and slender gull-wings protruding just far enough to give it good handling in an atmosphere. A couple of crew hatches were also visible.

“It doesn’t look very big…” Greyson tilted her head. “Armored? That sounds old fashioned, should we even be worried about this thing?”

Kitan shrugged. “I got a bit of a reading before their shields went up, just now. Isaac, did you see what I saw?”

“That ship is barely a ship as we understand them, it is half power plant and half weaponry, with just three life-signs aboard and not much room for them.” Isaac hesitated. “Wait… don’t pirates like to take loot, and and captives?”

“I think its safe to say that Lopyl was right, they aren’t taking any prisoners on this trip.” The Captain bit his lip and glanced at Bortus, who returns the look with a hard smile and cracks his knuckles. “Whoa, before it goes that far, let’s open a channel.”

“ _Where did they go_?” a strangely accented female voice demands, even before the video element comes on line.

There were indeed just three Zhrau visible, wearing black and red uniforms. Two were in the foreground, seated back to back and ignoring their consoles to stare at the view of Orville’s bridge with cold eyes. One male and one female, they both had ivory hair and honey-rich skin with something of a glow to it. Their features seemed all sharp angles and smooth curves that combined very attractively, with large eyes and swept-back ears that came to points. Right behind them in the small bridge was the female addressing them. Her skin was much darker and did not have the same glow to it. Her hair was like fine gold wire, with streaks of mahogany, and unlike her companions, this one had eyes that looked black.

“And hello to you too. This is the Union vessel Orville. I am Captain Mercer, and this is my First Officer, commander Greyson-“

“WHERE DID THEY GO?” The dark woman leaned forward as she snarled the question, far enough forward that she was stopped by the restraints in her chair.

“See? _they_ have seatbelts!” Mercer slaped a hand to the armrest of his chair and then spoke to the Zhrau; “Sorry, but who are you, and who are you talking about?”

The woman that barked at them clenched her fist and made a visible effort to calm herself. “Formality? Let’s make this short; this is the independent Enforcement Cutter Sat-Sin, you will call me Phaing.”

“Fang?” Malloy looked up at the Zhrau woman. “Sure sounds like a pirate name to me.”

“Pirates!? Why you-“ Phaing launched into a string of alien words so ugly, and obviously so profane, that Greyson turned the volume down by reflex.

“Not pirates?” Bortus asked, sounding disappointed.

“Oh hell… did she say ‘enforcement cutter’?” Mercer held both hands up at the viewer in a gesture very similar to what Lamar had used on him moments ago. “Please! We just got here, what is your interest that Movsoorian vessel,” Greyson gave him a quick thumbs-up when he got that tongue-twister of a word right, “and those refugees?”

“I saw that!” Phaing snarled at Greyson, lips tight and teeth flashing. “Play dumb with someone else, and that goes for all of you! I am _not_  going to allow those stolen children to be turned over to some pedophile’s slave auction block!”

The Captain was devastated, falling farther back into his chair. “Stolen … auction … _pedophiles_? I have GOT to start paying more attention to those quiet, nagging doubts in the back of my head.”

“Oh stop! You are probably in on it with them. You especially,” Phaing pointed a slim finger at Malloy, “yeah, you sure as hell look like a child molesting freak!”

Malloy was stunned. “Hey! _Me_?”

Without even looking his way, Kitan said; “Its the beard.”

“ _What_?”

Greyson nodded. “Definitely the beard.”

“WHAT!”

Phaing snapped her fingers to get their attention back on her, and the issue at hand. “You were right next to Lopyl when he hit his star drives, so your sensors recorded his departure. You know where he went. You are going to tell me where, and you have ten heartbeats before this gets ugly.”

“Now just a damn minute!” The Captain had already had enough nonsense when his own crew had poked fun at his friend and ace pilot. This strange woman's incessant demands only made things worse. “You can’t just come along and start threatening us, all we have us your _side_ of the story. Now let’s face facts; your ship is not exactly overwhelming. Why don’t we just-“

Phaing was looking right at him while he was speaking, ticking off heartbeats with her fingers. With the last finger, she tapped the shoulder of her Gunner and then snaps “Now”. The view screen image dissolved into a burst of static and a sound reached the bridge, similar to hail striking a tin roof.

“What _is_ that?” It did not sound like a deadly attack to Mercer.

“Half a dozen pulse lasers, each one about the size of my leg.” Kitan reported with her usual clipped tone.

Bortus let out a harsh chuckle. “What are they trying to do, tickle our deflectors to death?”

“A good analogy.” Isaac chimes in. “Each one is firing at a different polarity, and they shift each one constantly. They are looking for a weakness in our defenses. But even if they do, they won’t do us much harm. Our hull alone can withstand-“

BAM BAM _BAM_.

The bridge was not shaking, but the new impacts were very noticeable. An impact similar to sledge-hammers striking the floor.

Commander Greyson grabed the arms of her chair, hard. “Okay, what was _that_?”

“A particle cannon of some kind.” The read-out on her screen made Kitan grit her teeth. “That _could_ hurt us!”

“Well then, let’s hit them back!” In response to the Captain’s order, the forward half of the Orville lit up with a barrage of fire, but the Sat-Sin was already diving out of their firing arc. What Malloy had called asteroids were really part of a system of rings around an enormous purple and golden Gas-Giant. A portion of one of the rings had been pulled out of shape by a passing moon, and that was what the Sat-Sin was diving for. “After them!”

Malloy already had the Orville coming around before the captain gave the order, and Bortus continued to fire, but Greyson held up a hand and asked “Why? Could they be leading us into a trap?”

Captain Mercer nodded. “That is why we have to stay right on their tail before they can set one up, or gather up their friends. They are headed back the same way they came.”

“Oh, right. But we could just leave, they don’t know which way Lopyl went.”

“Right… hey, do **_we_** know?” Mercer asked Isaac.

“I did record the direction the Movsoorians went, and am backing-up that information now. I may also know why it is proving so difficult to hit them.”

“Yeah.” Mercer glanced at an increasingly frustrated Bortus, “What seems to be the problem?”

Isaac continued; “The Zhrau defensive shielding appears to be contoured to follow the lines of that ship’s hull, rather than the globe a deflection array forms around Union ships… and almost all others, for that matter.”

On hearing this, Bortus thumped his control panel and Malloy groaned, both still struggling to line up a clear shot at the fleeing Zhrau. Alara, puzzled, glanced at both of them and asked; “Why does that matter?”

Captain Mercer answerd without taking his eyes off the viewer. “Our near misses should still be hitting their deflectors, wearing them down. With this bunch, unless we get a direct hit it means nothing, and that is one small target from ahead or behind.”

Bortus nodded, giving it one last try as the Sat-Sin reached the rings. All he managed to hit were some of the larger rocks around the Zhrau, which detonated in multi-colored splashes of pyrotechnics. Bortus made fists of both his hands and raised them to shoulder level, gnashing his teeth as he reported to Mercer. “That must have hurt them. Unfortunately…. it also appears to have blinded the sensors. My apologies, Captain.”

“You can make it up to me by winning the next game of Latchcomb we play. Kitan, I have not heard any damage reports from our side yet.”

She made her own report, head held high. “That’s because we haven’t taken any yet, our deflectors are at 98% and rising.”

“Thank _you_  Lamar.” Captain Mercer nodded as Malloy slowed the ship. In situations like these, their thoughts often ran down the same pathways. “Right, I don’t think we want to follow them in there, not on the same path. Look for a gap in the worst of it. Isaac… we took no damage, I thought you said half that ship was weaponry?”

“Yes, in a fixed forward-firing arc. They do have something I have not been able to identify yet. However… Captain?”

“Yes?”

“If we **do** hit them, we would do considerable damage to them. It is conceivable that a direct from our weapons could break that ‘ship’ in half.”

“Well we don’t want to do that!” Mercer was taken aback, “The words ‘ _First Contact_ ’ and ‘ _That's how they all died_ ’ do NOT look very good together in a report to Union Headquarters!”

Bortus gave the Captain a sour look. “They started it.”

“We are trying to de-escalate this problem, not start a war, damnit! And from their point of view…" Mercers eyes were still locked in the viewer, and he nods at the move his Pilot is making. "... yes, Malloy, that looks good, takes us past the far side of that moon. Now… lets get that tractor ready. If we can hold them in place long enough to talk them down, maybe we can get to the bottom of all this.”

“I like that idea.” Greyson added quietly. “Enabling slavery would not look good on our service records.”

Mercer gave her a pained look. “We don’t _know_ that is what’s going on, not for certain.”

“I think we do, Ed.” She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees and lookied around Mercer towards Isaac. “You said one solid hit from us could wreck that ship, right?”

“Conceivably. Yes.”

“So, it was some kind of crazy/brave for them to open fire on us… they had to have a reason to do that.” Greyson gave Mercer a serious look. “Don’t you see? They are all convinced that they are right. Phaing’s crew didn’t hesitate to obey her.”

The Captain slumped in his chair. “I intend to write a very strongly worded recommendation that the Movsoorians NOT be invited into the Union.”  
   
 

 

The Orville sailed past an ugly little moon on its way into a gap in the bent ring of silvery-white rocks.

Malloy smiled. “There we go, that’s our path. Should be no problem at all t- _bww_ AH- _HAH_!”

What made him yelp was one of the larger rocks that was nearly in the Orville’s path. It exploded like a bomb and sent shards of flaming debris in all directions. Malloy quickly got a hold of himself and steered the ship towards the center, where the debris were lightest, mainly dust. “Okay, sorry about that. This looks clear enough, its just -“ This time, half the bridge crew echoed Malloy when he hollered; “ _Whoa_!”

The Sat-Sin burst out of the debris cloud like a bullet, directly in front of them, headed straight for the Orville once again. It’s little weapons were not firing this time, but hatches over the wing-roots were peeled back to reveal two-dozen missiles with warheads that had an eerie blue glow to them. Fully half of them rippled away to fly towards Orville at a frightening speed. Malloy had no time for anything but a frantic pull-out, and even that is too little, too late.

Isaac had time to blurt out just one word; “Cobalt-“

All of the missiles detonated against the underbelly of the Orville. Everyone on the bridge was bounced up out of their chairs several feet up in the air before landing on the floor, or, in Bortus’s and Kitan’s cases, on their control panels first, and then sliding to the floor.

Captain Mercer was laying face-down and flat on the floor when he asked; “What… was…” The lights flickered, and the bridge went dark. “… that?”

Commander Greyson groaned. “Good luck finding out _now_.”

 

* * *

 

  
   
Half-strength emergency lighting illuminated the bridge as the crew hauled themselves back to their stations. The Captain climbed to his knees, leaning over the armrest of his chair with one hand on the small of his back. “Seatbelts, what did I tell you?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Engineering, I hope you landed on your feet down there.”

Lamar’s voice answers over the comms; “Uh, yeah… you could say that.” The Chief had made it to engineering and was now standing on a metal flange barely large enough for both of his feet, more than twice his own height above the floor. The rest of his team were sprawled on the floor or draped over various pieces of machinery. “I need some medics down here, and a ladder. What hit us?”

“Isaac … is, re-booting or something. The last thing he said was ‘Cobalt’.”

“Who uses _that_?” Lamar glanced at the nearest control panel and shook his head. “Okay, that explains a lot, like how something like an EMP burned through our deflector and shut down all our systems. Captain, we’re running on stored power, I’ve got nothing for deflectors, weapons or our drives. Basic life support, sensors and comms are all we have, and in an hour we won’t even have that anymore.”

“How long will it take you to fix it?” Mercer asked, suppressing a squeal as he forces his body to stand upright.

“To replace every burned-out relay in the ship? Two days. And before you ask, that _is_  low-balling it.”

Captain Mercer almost went back down to his knees, but he managed to shake it off when Greyson gave him a sharp look. “Captain to the crew; I want everyone to grab what cold-weather gear you have and your EVA suits. We’re all going to bunk down in engineering for a while. Its going to be cold and hungry, but we will survive. Chief Lamar, in about ten minutes I want you to shut everything down and concentrate all the power you have left on life support in your department, and whatever you need to get this fixed. Or... maybe, just a little more than ten minutes.” Mercer looked up through the skylight and cringed. The Sat-Sin was coming back around. “I need to convince the people who did that to us not to finish us off.”

“I wish you the best of luck with that, I surely do.” Lamar looked down again, hoping for a soft landing.

Who should be there, but Yaphet. “Hey buddy, just jump. I’ll catch you!”

“I … umm.“

Yaphet chuckled, and assumed a mushroom shape. “Come on, you don’t think I’m still holding a grudge, just because you got my job?”

“No, it ain’t that.” Lamar still hesitated, thinking about a rumor he had heard about Yaphet and Doc Finn…  
 

 

  
“Where. Did .They. GO?!” Phaing looked much the same as she did when last seen. No glimmer of pride in what her little ship had done and just as angry as before, if not more so.

Most of the bridge crew were still pulling themselves together. Isaac sat up on the floor with his eyes flashing randomly and Bortus was still a bit dazed, picking a piece of his control panel out of his bloody forehead and trying to fit it back into the panel, as if it is a piece from a jigsaw puzzle.

“We. Don’t. KNOW!” The Captain fired back at Phaing with exactly the same tone. “All I can give you is their last heading. Well, once my science officer is up and running again.”

“Then that is what you will give me. And if it looks accurate, I won’t have to decide how many missiles I need end you after all.”

Malloy shook his head. “Save yourself the trouble, we-“

“Not now, Malloy!” For once, the Captain misread his helmsman. “Isaac, are you alright?”

“Functional.” Isaac sounded fine, but he was not ready to trust his legs yet. He reaches up to the console from where he is sitting. “Now?”

“Yes, now! Please?”

Malloy spun around. “Captain!”

Greyson was the next one to wave Malloy off. “Can it!” and to Phaing; “Are you getting that?”

Phaing leaned forward to look over her pilot’s shoulder, reading her screen. “Yes… that heading shows five… no … seven different possible destinations.”

“I told you so.“ The Captain snapped.

Now it was Phaing who held up a hand, and then bit her lip as she looked at them. “You really _didn’t_ know, did you?”

“Same answer!”

Phaing’s pilot tapped her screen, and they exchange predatory grins. “Yeah, that’s the one. That will do just fine.”

“Well…” Grayson sighed, relieved. “… good luck finding your kids.”

 _“My_ kids?” Phaing’s gunner chuckled, and that Zhrau was promptly smacked on back of his head by Phaing. “Commander Greyson, eh? Look, I don’t know who’s kids they are, and I don’t care. I’m getting them out of there and that is all there is too it. Now, if we want to beat them there, we have to leave right now. Good-“

“WAIT!” Malloy jumped up, waving at the viewer and at the Captain at the same time. “We need their help.”

“With what?” The Captain had no idea what to make of his Pilot’s antics. “They don’t look equipped to do much for us.”

“Damnit!” Malloy was at the end of his patience, and protocol be damned. “I have been trying to tell you, we are falling towards that Gas-Giant!”

“So what?” Phaing asked, puzzled.

“There, you see? That’s just the attitude I was expecting. I wanted you to hold that information to trade for their help, but we just gave it away.”

Phaing shugged at Malloy. “And I thought I had an uppity pilot!” Mercer made a gesture that Malloy did not appreciate, “Like I said, so what?” Just when Malloy and Mercer were both afraid she would just leave and let it happen, Phaing went on; “Why is that even a problem? Your ship looks perfectly aerodynamic to me.”

“When we _have_ power!” Malloy spluttered. “When we don’t, that array back there is nothing but drag. As soon as we hit that atmosphere we start dropping like a bomb, straight down! Captain, we don’t have two days, in two hours we will be so far down in that soup that the pressure will crush us to death!”

“What about escape pods?” Greyson asked, rising to her feet and standing by Mercer.

“There are no habitable planets in this system, no stations, and no power to send a distress call that will reach far enough!” Malloy looked to Isaac. “Isn’t that right?”

Isaac nodded, slowly.

That served as a hellish little wake-up for the bridge crew of Orville. Phaing’s own crew looked to her as she slumped back in her chair. “Wonderful. Just terrific!”

“Do you have some sort of tractor system?” Mercer asked hopefully.

“Do we look like we have room for a gadget like that?” Phaing’s Gunner pointed to his screen his screen, looking her way until she acknowledged him. “Oh, yeah, that should work. Alright… can you light up something at the nose of your ship that is non-essential? Something I can fire a harpoon into?”

“Yes…” Malloy hit a switch that he hoped would light up the right part of the bow. “What, no tractors, but you have _harpoons_ on that thing?”

“We are going to force our cannon to back-fire, which will cause the barrel to act as a spear. There is a tether wrapped around it for just this sort of situation.”

Phaing’s gunner turned to her. “That’s not strictly-“

“It will do for something like this, now get it done.”

The Gunner nodded, and then he passed something over his shoulder to the pilot. She took what appeared to be a slip of something shiny and stashed it in her collar, a quick smile flashing on her face.

“Hey, I saw that!” Captain Mercer called out.

“So did I.” Phaing snarled, leaning forward again, and glaring at her crew. “What exactly _was_  that?”

They both cringed. “What was… ?”

“What? Firing now!”

The Sat-Sin would appear to be a winged spindle clearly visible when in contrast with the pearly hull of the Orville, if someone had been seeing it from the nearby moon. A muted explosion erupted in the nose of the small ship and peeled back a few plates, sending the cannon barrel into the hull of the Orville. The cable played out, and held. After a tentative start, the Sat-Sin went to full power, leaving some scorch-marks but also pulling the larger ship out of it’s shallow dive, slowly.

Everyone on both ships were carefully watching the readouts on their consoles. Malloy kept looking up from his, and at the Zhrau on the screen. “Damn, that thing has some serious power. Easy… we are almost there … what kind of a name is ‘Fang’ for a beautiful woman like you?”

Everyone looked up, except for Phaing herself. She barely seemed to notice the question until she says;”Not fang, just Phaing.” It sounded exactly the same to the Union crew. Malloy looked to Greyson, who could only shrug. The Zhrau continues; “An alias.”

“It means-“ Kitan blurted out two words, and then hunched over her console, with one hand up as if she is fidgeted with her hair and blocking her face from the viewer, somewhat. Mercer and Greyson both looked her way, realizing that she had been doing that for much of this encounter.

“Chaos. That is what you were about to say, right?” Phaing did look up this time, and peered more closely at Kitan. Her lips pulled back from her teeth when she said “Hello, cousin.” Her eyes widened as she looked the crew over, really _seeing_ them for the first time. “Well well well… quite the eclectic crew you have there, Captain Mercer. This Union of yours is certainly attracting attracting a vasty membership.” Here eyes came to a rest on one crew member in particular, and that was Isaac. Neither of them moved or spoke for a long moment, then Phaing finally said; “Oh my… I have a feeling that you and I ought to have a nice, long chat someday.”

Isaac did not answer Phaing in any way, remaining perfectly still and silent as only a machine could.

The Sat-Sin was burning so hard that itwas only a matter of time before it melted the cable attached to Orville, and when that moment came Phaing was slammed back into her seat and the little ship bolted away from the planet. “Woo- _HOO_! Oh these little beasties sure are fun! If you have the means, I highly recommend getting one. Hey Mercer, you clear?”

“Are we clear?” Greyson asked Malloy.

“Yes! If we are still in orbit, its going to be a high one. Should be-“

The lights flickered again and this time were are replaced by nothing but a red glow. The captain claped his hands to get their attention. “Alright, Lamar just cut this section out of life support… oh great, and comms too?” The view-screen is showed nothing but the space outside, and the Sat-Sin streaking away. Mercer was anything but disappointed to see them leave. “Yeah, who needs any long tearful goodbyes. Lets all get to engineering before we start to catch cold.”

Greyson was already hurrying out of the bridge. “I hope the pipes don’t burst!”

Mercer appeared to take take it as a joke, until Malloy passed by. “Thats not actually possible, is it?”

Malloy shrugged and took off after Greyson.

Next was Isaac. “Please go ahead, Captain. I will search the decks for anyone left behind.”

“Yes, good thinking.” Isaac would have no trouble dealing with the cold and lack of breathable air. He would be invaluable in the days ahead, but something made Mercer pause and ask him one last thing. “Um… Isaac … do **_we_**  need to have a chat?”

“About what?” The machine’s voice was as inscrutable as ever.

“About…” Mercer glanced back and the screen, the Sat-Sin was already gone. “… nothing. Just, carry on.”

 

  
   
* * *

 

“Admiral, we only just got everything fixed back up 20 minutes ago, we called as soon as we could!”

The senior crew gathered in the conference room, looking very much the worse for wear. All were dirty and disheveled and several had blankets over their shoulders.

On the view screen was Admiral Halsey himself. “Yes Captain, and we gave the message you sent immediate attention. After not hearing from you for three days, everyone here was very worried, especially when the ship we sent to look for you found nothing where we thought you should be.”

Lamar muttered; “ _Three_ days… that is the last time I start out by 'low-balling' it.”

Halsey continued; “If your systems are fully restored, we want you to pull out of that sector as quickly as you can.”

“What?” Captain Mercer was not if sure he had heard that right. “Is the Union pulling back from the Zhrau?”

“Not the Union, just you. Now Ed, before you even start, you have to admit that ships with a more Military specialty are needed there. You have our best track record against the Krill, but the Orville just got it’s butt kicked by a ship 4% it’s size with 10% of it’s firepower, and that is according to your own readings.”

“Yeah, 10%, before they unloaded all those Cobalt warheads at us.” Commander Greyson raised a finger at the admiral and said, teeth chattering just a little; “And that is confirmed, they hit us with weapons of mass destruction in a tactical encounter. Residual radiation analysis proves it.”

“Yes, we know that. Pel Station was destroyed by the same sort of weapons.” Admiral Halsey looked as if he instantly regretted letting that out.

“Which… what?” Greyson looked to Isaac.

“Pel was one of the possible destinations that the Movsoorian’s heading would have taken them to.”

“They just blew it up?” Kitan gasped. “The children?”

Halsey shook his head. “Perhaps not. The first word we heard of something happening there was an alert about a stolen ship. Captain, were you able to observe any traffic in the area you are in now… such as that Zhrau gunboat and a larger transport vessel headed back the way they had come from?”

“No. We were blind to everything going on around us for the better part of two days.” Mercer shuddered as he remembered those days, with even the portholes iced up and nothing he could do about it. “An experience I never want to repeat!”

“A stolen ship? They got the kids out.” Greyson started to smile.

“It was bad enough as it is.” The Admiral gave her a hard look. “Eight hundred people, seventeen ships, an orbital trade station demolished! Not in Union space, but still, unacceptable by any measure.“

“Hang on.” Malloy had a far-away look in his eyes, gradually coming into focus on the Admiral, and then Greyson. “Pel isn’t just outside of Union space, its also a long way from the Zhrau sphere of influence. I read some long-range scans when we got the navs back.” Malloy notices that his Captain is giving him a curious look. “Ah, the point is, it took the Zhrau about five seconds.” he puts up his hand with five fingers outspread for emphasis, “for them to pick that place out of a list with seven sets of astral coordinates on it.”

“Right… so?” Greyson can’t see what he is getting at either.

“So, Commander, that damn place had a reputation, one that they had heard about.” He looked at the Admiral, and then back to Captain Mercer. “So if the Zhrau knew, who else might have-“

“Whoa.” The Captain sent Malloy a warning look.

“What exactly are you trying to get at, Lieutenant?” The Admiral did not look pleased.

“I-“

“You are sending us off on a tangent, and we don’t have time for that.” The Captain turned back to the Admiral. “Sorry, we will be ready to get under way in an hour.” Lamar looked as if he was about to say something, but he just nodded instead. “Where are we heading?”

“The coordinates will be in your hands in a moment. There is a tricky situation that we think your crew has the knack for… but lets not go into that before you get there. A certain amount of discretion will be called for.”

“Admiral, with all due respect?” Bortus asked, mildly offended. “If you are insinuating that this crew can’t keep our mouths shut, I assure you that you are mistaken.”

“Then you can all start proving it, as of right now.” And without another word, the Admiral broke the connection.

Half the people in the room started to leave right away, moving their arms as if to shake off a chill. Kitan threw a big Duck-Hunters cap over her head as she left.

Captain Mercer, on the other hand, rounded on Malloy as soon as the screen went dark. “What was-“ He grabbed the arms of the chair when Greyson pushed on the chair to spin him back around to face her. “-that… hey!”

“Why didn’t you let him finish? I wanted to hear that!” Greyson asked Mercer in a low, intense tone.

Malloy leaned around the Captain to nod sharply at Greyson. “Thank you!”

“You wanted to hear him accuse the Admiralty, or the Union Governing body, of knowing about a child-slavery ring and doing nothing about it? I know we get away with a lot of dumb stuff here, but come on! Even a rumor… _Jeez_!”

Greyson was exasperated. Once again, Ed just wasn’t getting the point. “But, the Movsoorians! They have applied to the Union-“

“Oh!" Mercer relaxed and leaned back into his chair. "No, no, they can forget about that. This kind of incident is exactly the kind of thing that can de-rail the whole application process. So just relax, okay? I think we have heard the last of them. And going by what the Admiral just ordered, we have also seen the last of the Zhrau.”

Lamar was on his way out the door, but he heard his Captain saying that, and winced sharply.

Walking alongside him was Bortus, the only one that noticed him doing that. “What?

“I … its…” Lamar realized that if there was one person aboard that could appreciate what was on his mind, it was Bortus. “It is something from this bit of all literature, a line that popped into my head just now.”

Bortus smiled. “Human literature? I would be pleased to hear it.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” They paused at a window that showed some of the rings and the dark side of the Gas Giant. “It goes something like; ‘If you listen closely, you can hear the Gods, laughing’.”

The smile faded from Bortus’s face as he pondered that. “Then it is a good thing that sound does not carry in space.”

Outside the window they were standing at, there was a scar on the hull that the has not been repaired yet. When the Zhrau cable snapped, it recoiled and lashed the hull, leaving a curved slash below a pair of hatches. It did not look like anything in particular, unless one’s point of view was from dead-ahead.

From that angle, it looked something like a Smiley Face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little mood music to go with each chapter will be at the bottom of each one.
> 
> (I think this works better than what I had before)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk


	2. Theory of a Madman, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, the last one was all in-the-cockpit action, so I had better try something else for a bit.  
> This one is very different, and also directly related to the last one.
> 
> And yes, heck of a place for a break but the other half will be out very soon. ;)

Eight months later …

 

The sky was a deep and darker blue than what is seen on most planets, without a single cloud anywhere in sight. The fact that it was a dry world was emphasized by the terrain, a desert with sparse grass in the flatlands broken by mesas and spires of natural rock.

The whole senior crew of the Orville stood dressed in their best uniforms, on a platform similar to a balcony with railings all around it.

“Its not so different from Monument Valley, in North America.” Doctor Finn mused.

“I suppose so.” Captain Mercer had never been to Arizona. He turned around and made a grand, sweeping gesture. “But _that_  sure is different!”

Looking the other way, they all gazed up in wonder at the building that was the reason for their being here. Once an average sized mesa, it had been hewn and re-shaped by sentient hands into one of the largest terrestrial structures in known space. There were three levels of perfectly shaped columns set slightly inward from the set below them, somewhat reminiscent of a wedding cake. The whole structure was covered by an oval dome pierced with many gabled openings, and was itself topped by a small forest of slender towers. All of it had been carved from one solid piece of rock, the same rock as the outcroppings surrounding it, After it had been ground and polished it had a richer, deeper coloring than the unaltered stone.

“Welcome to Ras Mentis. Just wait till you see the inside.” The balcony they stood on was actually a floating platform, and at Malloy’s touch on the railing, it started moving towards the building quickly enough to make the women’s hair flow back over their shoulders.

 

There was no single entrance to this place of peace, the entire circumference of the columned building was open at the ground floor. Malloy landed where a party of Union people were ready to greet them. Admiral Halsey and Admiral Ozawa were both there, as well as half a dozen staff members. After a friendly round of greetings, Captain Mercer stood a bit apart from the crowd to take a good look around. The columns were five rows deep, yet some of the interior could already be seen; an amphitheater paneled with stone that has alternating bands of lighter, pastel colors. “The brief was impressive enough, but this is just … wow!”

“The history of this place is a bit odd.” Ozawa did not appear to be so impressed. “It was built as a meeting hall for a peace conference about a millennia and a half ago."

  
“That’s amazing, and highly encouraging.” Greyson craned her neck to get a better look as the party started moving deeper into the interior.

Ozawa gave her a look that was almost one of pity. “Perhaps not as much as you think. In fact, hardly anyone has used it since.”

Mercer turned to Ozawa. “Must be why everything in here looks brand new. Umm… do we _want_ to know why it was abandoned?”

Halsey hesitated, glancing at Ozawa. “Best you hear it from us, first. Legend has it that one side of the peace delegation caught some sort of plague here that they brought home with them. It more or less wiped them out, and the other side’s colonies rose in rebellion. With their fleet here there wasn’t very much they could do about it until they returned, and by then it was too late. Both civilizations more or less vanished from the pages of history not long after that.”

Doctor Finn missed a step and nearly stumbled. “Oh my _God_ , that’s a horrible story!”

“Yes, well… it could also explain why our half the rent was so cheap.”

“Half?” Mercer was not going to question the use of rent, this was neutral territory and bound to have some out-dated concepts. He and Greyson slowed down to take a good look around once they reached the true interior of the building. The outer walls were covered with many levels of galleries, office space and rooms of every size set behind walkways adorned with sculpted railings. The central chamber was mostly filled by three amphitheaters that faced each other from different levels. The place was not busy, but not exactly deserted. It is more like a city center on a Sunday morning, with just enough people moving around in the distance to make it appear used. Lamar pulled a small device out of his pocket and holds it like a camera. Mercer spoke to both Admirals. “My instructions were pretty vague on one point; why are we here? Who are we meeting with?”

“That’s some very good news, I didn’t want to jinx it.” Halsey admitted.

“A splendid idea, considering the setting.” Ozawa quiped while she scaned the upper galleries.

Halsey cleared his throat. “There is also the matter of the other party involved here.”

“You don’t mean…” Kitan was a little embarrassed to find herself speaking in front of the Admirals, but once that all eyes were on her she had to finish the thought, “… the Krill want to talk peace?”

“No, this could be even more momentous that that. The Zhrau Government has asked to meet with us!”

Lamar dropped his camera, several of the crew started to splutter, and Ozawa smirked without looking their way as she walked towards the nearest elevator. “Yes, that was my reaction, too.”

 

The conference room was roughly double the size of the one of the Orville, the seventeen Union officers seated there only occupied two-thirds of the table. The end of the oval table was not yet occupied and had a red and black flag hung over it that was covered with gold scrollwork.

“They will be here any moment and I am still not sure how to pronounce them,” a man on the Admiral’s staff said, a Captain serving as an aide to the Admiral, "or what to call them."

“It is as simple as it looks.” Greyson used a touch-pad with a small attachment to project the answer on the wall. “Zhrau… the first part sounds just like the first bit of a word like ‘Gendarme’, and the rest is Raoul … but without the “L” at the end.”

“Thank you, Commander. That much is simple, I hope the rest of this is.”

“Hah!” Mercer sat between Greyson and Bortus, one hand massaging his forehead. “The one that insisted we call her ‘Fang’ never seemed to like how we were pronouncing _her_  name, and if that isn’t a simple sound I don’t know what is.” His hand dropped, hitting the table with a thud. “We are here at the request of the Zhrau, and _they_  are coming to _us_?”

“They are already here.” Ozawa consulted her neat and handy little wrist-comp. “The Luxury liner above us is their’s, shuttles have been landing since before you arrived at the far end of the building.”

“No warships?”

Ozawa tapped her little device again “Just two, now pulling into high-orbit near our squadron.”

“Two is enough!”

“Yes, Captain, they obviously think so, too. However, since we brought ten ships and the Zhrau could have brought the same number without any breach of protocol, I’d say they are making a gesture of good faith. Dangerous as they may be, they have not shown us any treachery. In fact, that sort of behavior is not really a major part of their reputation.”

Lamar raises his hand to the side of his face, mimicking a comms unit. “Hello? Pel Station, anyone?”

“Yes, about that.” Halsey took up the narrative, Ozawa’s eyes had not left her wrist-comp since she had started tapping on it. “We were right, the children were brought out of there before that place was destroyed. Many have been returned to their families… those that had any. That in itself was a rather extraordinary rescue-“

“Last time we spoke about this, you didn’t seem so pleased about that whole station going up in radioactive smoke!” Malloy groused.

“Lieutenant, are you really so eager to remind me about what was said that day?” Admiral Halsey may have been in an expansive mood, but he had little patience with mouthy junior officers. Malloy backed down, and Halsey continued; “Now, another reason we can’t be anything but vague with you is because _they_ were pretty vague themselves. The only things they were specific about was their desire to meet with the crews of the ships they had encountered, and your ship is on a very short list of three. Another is the survey ship Escher …” Ozawa gave Halsey a lopsided grin, complete with raised-eyebrow. “… alright, a _Spy_ ship, which can’t reach us until the day after tomorrow. So, you are up first.”

“The Union has been spying on them?” Kitan marvels at this information. “And they _know_ , and the Zhrau react with… this?” She waved with a gesture that encompasses the room, and its view of the amphitheaters.

“They don’t sound so bad now, do they?” Halsey glanced at Mercer, who said nothing until Greyson nudged him.

“Uh, no sir, not at all. But if they wanted to make us forgive Pel, letting a Sp- … a _Survey_ ship slip away would be the right way, apparently.” Mercer was unconvinced, and just this side of testy. “Were they specific about _anything_?”

“Yes, Captain, they were. They asked if we needed any help with the Krill. When we allowed for that possibility, they mentioned that they might be able to help, and posted a list of warships making up two of their squadrons.”

“Squadrons?” Something akin to a sneer formed on Mercer’s face. Every space-faring race had different ideas about how fleets should be organized. “Admiral… what does that even mean?”

“Four million tons of what you faced at P5k-881, only in much larger packages. Does that answer your question, Captain?”

“Wow.” Mercer was rocked back in his chair, trying to picture that in his mind.

Malloy & Lamar were grinning at each other. “All that, on our side?”

Bortus was not thrilled, although with him it is hard to tell. “Beware of geeks bearing gifts.”

“Ah, no.” Finn pinched the bridge of her nose, and then tried to correct him. “That’s not how it goes; its ‘Greeks bearing gifts’.”

“What did I just say?”

“Something that I agree with.” Ozawa nodded to Bortus. “A healthy amount of skepticism is called for here, even if this is just a preliminary meeting. Lets not be giving anything away to these Zhrau. Hopefully they don’t know as much about us as we know about them, so lets play our cards very carefully, understood?”

 

A gentle chime sounded at the doorway, and it opened sliding from the top downwards. Four Zhrau entered the room as the Union personnel stood to greet them. They saluted by touching a closed fist to their foreheads and then turning those fists forward at shoulder level, opening their hands to show they were empty. Then they introduced themselves, one at a time.

“General Tarlyn, State Security.”

“Admiral Zurnoctis, Fleet Leader.”

“Commissioner Jirot, Combined Staff.”

“Duke Argaelion knn Virotte.”

Each was wearing a slightly different uniform, charcoal gray with scarlet piping for Tarlyn and Jirot, light blue for Zurnoctis and a severe and unadorned black for Virotte. All of them were slender, taller than humans on the average, and strikingly attractive.

Zurnoctis was the only female, and the only one that showed even the slightest signs of age, the males had that oddly indeterminate look that could have put them anywhere from their late 20s to mid 40s in Human terms. After those introductions, they stood at ease, and even smiled encouragingly at the Union personnel, awaiting their response.

Bortus was the first to come forward. “Among humans is it traditional for one person to introduce the rest. However, I am Moclin, and I like _your_ way. Lt. Commander Bortus, USS Orville.”

And so it went, until everyone has told the Zhrau who they were, and are received in a more cordial way than they had anticipated. Admiral Halsey is the last. “Won’t you please be seated?”

“Kelly, how worried do you think I should be?” Mercer asked Greyson in a low whisper as they made their way back to their seats. “When people like that come strolling in, smiling like the Cat that just swallowed the Canary-“

Greyson hissed to make Mercer quiet down. “Well maybe _that_ reputation is bogus!”

Taryln looked around at all of the Union people. “So many new names… ah!” Once everyone had settled in, names begin to appear in small lighted panels all around the table in front of where everyone was seated. The names appeared in both the Human alphabet and that of the Zhrau. A hidden device had recorded their names and followed the movement of everyone in the room. “The owners of our ancestors were nothing if not thorough.”

A bright-eyed Lieutenant on Ozawa’s staff sat up a little straighter on hearing that. “I’m sorry, did you say ‘owners’?”

General Tarlyn looked to the Duke, who smoothly fielded the question. “As good a place to start as any. Long ago, our world was invaded and conquered, our ancestors enslaved by an alien race who’s name we do not speak. For many generations our race were kept as slaves by a civilization that possessed highly advanced technology, and so there was no need for a force of manual laborers. Zhrau were culled and bred for visual appeal and a willingness to submit to various… _whims_ , whatever the race of Masters desired. In the first thing, the Masters were successful, if the reactions of some among you is any indication. However, in the second item, they were not as successful as they had hoped. Breeding and emotional manipulation cannot touch certain things. Among these are hope, and no amount of indoctrination is any substitute for the truth. Truth once revealed cannot be ignored, and in every slave beats the heart of a Rebel. Fifteen hundred years ago our ancestors overthrew and eliminated the Masters, and became the founders of our realm.”

“That is… quite a lot to take in.” Halsey swallowed with a bit of effort. “You have said a great deal using very few words.”

“Thank you.” The Duke accepted that as a compliment, and decided to notice Mercer and Greyson whispering to each other again. “Yes?”

“Ah… um.” Mercer cleared his throat. “We have been speculating on just how much of your reputation, and rumors to that effect, might be true.”

“And?”

Trapped, Mercer had to add; “And, the part about ruthlessness is certainly understandable now.”

“Ruthlessness?” The Duke seemed to be non-plussed by that and looked to Tarlyn, who silently mouthed the word ‘Phaing’ to him. “Oh, yes, of course. We can get back to that later, and I am glad that you and your crew are here to witness our proposal.” Duke Virotte angled his head so that it was harder for the Union people to see him silently ask Zurnoctis; “Where _is_  she?”, the Zhrau Admiral could only shrug and shake her head.

“So, nothing remains of your … of the Masters?” Ozawa asked carefully.

“Only this place. It is rather fortunate that we did not go ahead and use it as target practice, is it not?” The Duke’s smile made it hard to tell if he was joking, or not. “And all that remains of what we once were before their coming… is embodied by your people, Alara Kitan. Some of the most intelligent of our distant ancestors saw what was coming, and fled to more promising worlds.” He paused to look her over. “Ridges in the bone structure for added strength, and even in the ears so they don’t lose their shape. Your people found a high-gravity world, yes?”

“Yes.” Kitan snapped a tense nod at the Duke. She had been dreading the moment the Zhrau would focus on her ever since she had heard they would be here today. “I hope there are no hard feelings!”

All of the Zhrau chuckled, and this time it was Jirot who spoke. “Because your distant forebears were smarter than our own? Perish the thought! We have no brawn, so we fight with our brains. You Xelayans turned out to be the smartest of all of us.” Jirot’s voice was nearly as cultured and precise as the Duke. “Considering what happened, and what _nearly_ happened, no. Your people were very nearly the sole remaining legacy of our people.”

“What ‘nearly happened’… ?” Dr. Finn asked by neatly quoting him.

The Zhrau looked to Tarlyn to answer this one. “The Masters were losing their war, badly. It is what forced their arrogant hierarchy to this very peace table, but they also had a back-up plan. All the lost battles had depleted their ranks, claiming their best and brightest, so they had also initiated a crash-program to turn some of our ancestors into warriors. Not the usual breeding, time was too short for that, but genetic and mental manipulation, and a training & selection program that you would call ‘ruthless’ were all very much on the table.”

“Dear god…” Finn shrank back into her chair, “… from where I am sitting, you just became the most frightening people in the Galaxy.”

“Doctor!” Admiral Halsey and Commander Greyson both admonished the Doctor at the same time. Halsey looked to the Zhrau. “My apologies …” he stopped what he was about say when it became obvious that the Zhrau looked satisfied, rather than offended by Doctor Finn’s comment.

“Truth is best.” The Duke assured her. “On that note, I would like to get to the purpose of this meeting.” None of the Zhrau were smiling now. Not hostile, but they all had an air of being perfectly serious. “A little over half a year ago, a copy of the data-core in your central archives was made. That copy, and the man who made it, both disappeared and you were never able to find either one.”

Mercer’s head snapped around to look at the Admirals. He had never heard of any such thing, but it was plain to see that both Ozawa and Halsey had. They did not look surprised, but very concerned.

The Duke continued without pause. “That man found us, and sold us your Data. Now, with all that information, we could have destroyed you. Fleet dispositions, emergency plans, passwords, bases and concentration of supplies, it was all there… as well as your history and how the Union itself functions… right down to you founding principles.” He paused with an unreadable look in his eyes.

Everyone on the Union side of the table felt as if the fground has dropped out from under them. The Duke had spelled it out; all the Union’s dirty little secrets and the big important ones ... all known to the Zhrau. Codes could be changed, passwords too, fleets could be re-distributed, but there was always something that no Government could afford to let out. Blackmail thrives on details, the true balance of trade will always upset someone, Every great power had secrets that were like like graves; best for the sanity of all involved that they never be uncovered.

In a Galaxy where reputation was currency, the life of the Union was hanging by a thread.

Isaac was only Union member present that had not been floored by all this, and was able to interject a question; “The purpose of this meeting is to present your demands, then?”

“Why, no.” The Duke blinked, and slowly started to smile again. “That archive showed us who you really are, and what your Union truly is. And if you think it would be acceptable, we’d like to throw in _with_ you.”

 

 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Theme music -

 

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HXGzHhhlc>


	3. Theory of a Madman, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is Part 2, and Part 3 will follow shortly.

Part Two

 

“What …the”

“ _what_ did he….”

“WHAT?!”

The stammering and stuttering at the Union end of the table was nearly universal. Isaac was not joining in , of course, and neither was Admiral Ozawa. She was leaning back in her chair, mouth open and eyes narrowing as she folded her arms over her chest. When the hub-but died down a little, she asked with a cutting voice; “Why?”

“‘Why’ is the question that does indeed go to the heart of the matter.” The Duke favored Ozawa with a look that showed respect. “From time to time, this part of the Galaxy… we sometimes shorten that to _‘lex_ in conversation… has been swept with conflict that always involves one species asserting dominance over another. War itself is not the most distasteful aspect here, it is the _purpose_ for which these parsec-spanning conflicts are waged. Imperialism, even the benevolent sort, is repulsive to us.” The Duke leaned on the table, his gaze went laser-sharp as he looked into the eyes of every Union member in front of him. “What you bring is not Imperialism, but it is oddly benevolent. You Humans in particular come to us with an idealism that would be impossible for us to believe in, were it not for the archive with all it’s secrets falling into our hands. This Union of yours honestly does its best to make things better for everyone involved, there is no hidden agenda! This makes you unique, and precious, so long as this idealism lasts. Even so, there was considerable debate in our society about how to proceed with you. We,” he gestured to the other Zhrau, then pointed to himself, “ _and_ I, argued most strongly in favor of the present course of action, which is to explore the possibility of an alliance, and perhaps eventual merging with your Union. For that reason, we were the ones sent here, and we will be responsible to our people for whatever results. There were many… erm, _arguments_ , as well as some dueling regarding this matter. Luckily for us, we have an exceptionally able champion on our side.”

The Duke tilted his head towards Admiral Zurnoctis and gave her a questioning look. “I know,” she answers an unspoken question, “I’ll find out what is keeping her.” Zurnoctis ran her hand over the sleeve of her uniform jacket, which lit up with an intricate display. Her fingers stroked the keys while the Duke resumed speaking;

“At the risk of inflating your egos, let me assure you that if we are right about you, you _are_  rather remarkable. What you are trying to build is special, is it not, Lieutenant Isaac? That is why your people sent you out among them, yes?”

Isaac looked down at the table for a moment before answering. “There is much to be learned. All knowledge is worth having, is it not?”

“Aren’t you the clever one.” General Tarlyn had one elbow on the table, resting his chin on a closed fist. “For a _machine_ , I mean to say.”

“A machine _intelligence_.” Isaac corrected him, but trilling-beep sounded as Isaac was trying to explain. For just a second, it seemed as if his voice unit was malfunctioning.

“I’m sorry, that did not translate …. what _is_  that?” Tarlyn stopped speaking as the noise came again from an unseen source.

The only person that seemed to know what is going on was Zurnoctis, and she did not look happy about it. She stopped tapping her sleeve and covered her face with the palm of her hand. “You are not going to believe this…”

The beeps stopped and were replaced by other sounds. There came a click, and a thump, and a shuffling sound that everyone soon realized could only be coming from under the table. Human, Zhrau and others looked at each other, none of them wanting to be the first to actually twist around in their seats to see what was down there.

Two small hands soon appeared on the edge of the table, at one of the few empty chairs left. With a grunt and a sigh, Phaing pulled herself up into view, wiggling her rump to get the chair under her. Her hair and uniform were rumpled and she blinked her eyes as if she has just woken up. “Whew! Oh, I gotta tell you, there are some species that should _NEVER_ take their shoes off in the middle of the day!”

Bortus froze, eyes flicking left and right as half the people in the room looked his way. It was, however, one of the Senior Captains on Ozawa’s staff that Phaing herself was looking at. The Captain grimaced and shifted in his chair to slip his feet back into his shoes, and as all eyes went to him it was Admiral Ozawa’s turn to do a face-palm.

General Tarlyn was not amused, and he was sitting right next to Phaing. “Do you expect anyone to believe that you were _sleeping_ down there?”

“Take is as a convenient fiction if you like, but I have roaming around this place since the night before yesterday.”

“How… we had a Company of Marines sweep this place!” Halsey turned on the Captain with the smelly feet. “Didn’t we?”

“More like about fifty was all. In something this size, dodging them was child’s play.” Phaing stretched her neck from side to side, and caught sight of the Orville’s Crew. “Captain Mercer! Hello there, miss me?”

“Only every time we shot at you.” Mercer grumbled.

“So far.” Malloy added.

Phaing clapped her hands and let out a good laugh. “Oh hell yeah!” She the nodded Admiral Zurnoctis. “I think you were right, that’s the ship for me!”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Zurnoctis smiled at Phaing, the Zhrau Admiral’s bearing was that of a celebrity that trying to be gentle with a persistent fan, right down to the carefully measured smile. “However, before we get down to arranging an exchange of touring officers-“

“Fang?!” Mercer was stunned to hear that they are not joking. It is one dreadful piece of news too many. “On _my_  ship?”

Phaing slapped the tabletop, instantly flipping from delighted to angry. “Will you _please_ stop doing that! I am Phaing, not a long tooth.” The display in front of her obediently lit up, spelling out her name; PHAING.

Mercer glanced at it and shrugged, repeating himself. “Phaing?”

“There, you see?” She relaxed. “How hard was that!”

“Huh?” Mercer blinked. It still sounded exactly the same to him.

The Duke stood and gently clapped his hands together, speaking to his fellow Zhrau, who also rose. “I think that is enough for now. We have dropped a rather large data-pile into the laps of our Union friends, and now would probably be a good time to let them absorb all of this. Admirals,” he looked to Ozawa and Halsey, “am I right? Shall we adjourn, take some refreshment? There are a great many rooms here available for private consultations.”

All of the Union personnel stood up, the Admirals last with Halsey tugging at the collar of his jacket. He managed to speak with only a slight stammer at the beginning; “An excellent idea, thank you, Duke. If I could have a quick word with you… and Admiral Zurnoctis, I believe that Admiral Ozawa would like a moment?”

Whatever else one may have to say about Halsey, he always did have a good head for what the people around him wanted. Zurnoctis held up a hand to prevent Phaing from following her as she went to shake hands with Ozawa, and the two female Admirals headed for a small glassed-in office. Halsey and a staff Captain deftly shepherded the Duke to one of the other offices, one with a view if the interior of the vast building.

The other Zhrau separated to make themselves more approachable, Tarlyn was soon surrounded by the Admiral’s aides and Jirot attracted a smaller gathering as he made his way to the main entrance of the meeting chamber. Phaing started coming around the table to where the Orville’s crew were, and she was met halfway by Malloy and Lamar, who immediately engaged her in an animated conversation.

Mercer remained near his seat, in no hurry to join in the conversations. He stood there with a pensive look on his face, fingers drumming on the back of his chair as he studied the Zhrau, and Phaing especially. Her uniform jacket was a different shade of blue than the Zhrau admiral wore, with a high folded collar of gold and red vertical bands, and the jacket was cut shorter. It could have been seen as indecently short, if Phaing were to bend over too far, considering the pants. Those pants were the same charcoal gray as the General’s uniform, are very form-fitting. She also had boots that reached nearly to her knees and laced up along the sides. They resembled moccasins, soft and comfortable-looking. The accessory that drew and held Mercer's attention was the leather belt from which hung a sword and various other devices. When she turned to gesture out the window, Mercer could also see a neat and handy little pistol, mounted in a horizontal-draw holster in the small of her back.

Mercer did not understand how the arrangement was supposed to work. The sword (if that was what it really was) was on her right hip, as if it was intended to be drawn with the left hand in a cross-drawing motion. That would make her left-handed, but the pistol could _only_ be drawn by the right hand. 

None of the rest of the Zhrau were armed that way, and Mercer remembered talk of duels and champions. He shook his head, Phaing was not just petite, she was also noticeably shorter than everyone else in the room… with the possible exception of Kitan. These were not the only things that separated Phaing from her companions; the other Zhrau styled themselves to emphasize the sweep of their ears and eyes and their elegant proportions. Phaing was the only one among them not wearing styled hair or any cosmetics, she even fluffed her long, wavy hair while he was watching. Mercer realized that she was deliberately trying to keep her ears covered.

Bortus and Greyson stood by on either side of Captain Mercer, watching him as closely as he was watching the Zhrau, if not more so. 

Greyson leaned forward, head low as she said to Mercer; “You didn’t want _me_  on your ship, either, once upon a time.”

Bortus also had something to say, in a low voice and barely moving his lips at all. “I like the way she moves.” Mercer and Greyson both raised an eyebrow at him. “Others of her kind glide about the room, as if there is something slippery about them. She steps more carefully, keeping her feet grounded.” Bortus nodded with a rare grunt of approval.

It was difficult for Mercer to hide a smile. For reasons of his own, he had already decided that he could accept the situation… not that it was entirely in his own hands. Mercer turned to look over his shoulder at the office where Halsey was meeting with the Duke. Halsey had forgiven the Captain and crew of Orville for many things, and  Mercer had already decided that instead of arguing, the next time Halsey asked something of him ‘Yes sir’ would be the only good answer.

He also saw Admirals Zurnoctis and Ozawa having an animated discussion. Ozawa looked at Phaing, and shook her head with a stony frown.

How interesting…

Lamar and Malloy were still there with Phaing, but not for much longer. The only word that Mercer could make out was a breathless “Really?” from Malloy. Phaing nodded at something beyond the window again with a ‘why not’ gesture. Both of the men dashed out of the room with an hurried “Excuse us, Captain!” as they went by.

There was nothing between Phaing and the senior officers now. The three of them started to approach her, Greyson wondered aloud “Where is Kitan?”

At the far end of the room, the ‘refreshments’ had arrived, and from both fleets at the same time. The presence of the Luxury cruise-ship meant that a bevy of willowy civilian Zhrau were on hand to do the service in style. The Union, on the other hand, had somewhat plainer fare being carried in by burly Marines.

It occurred to Mercer that it might have been set up this way by the Zhrau, to de-emphasize their militant ways.

Jirot was there, and displayed his particular talent; he effortlessly organized what could have been a clumsy and chaotic clash of different kinds of hospitality. He even had Kitan helping him, and hardly had to raise his voice until Lamar and Malloy went barreling past him. Jirot blinked as he is spun halfway around, and called after them. “The toilet facilities are just around the corner, on your right!”

Mercer sighed. “What _is_  it with those two?”

“They are on their way.” Phaing said to her illuminated sleeve as she met Mercer and his staff.

“To what?” Bortus demanded gruffly.

“To my Gunboat. They wanted to have a look and the crew will be there to meet them. If its a problem…?”

“Oh, well, why not?” Mercer accepted the idea philosophically and regained his smile. “We have a bit of catching up to do when it comes to learning about your side of things. You already know Commander Greyson, and this is Commander Bortus.”

“I never forget the face of someone who tried to kill me.” Phaing winked disarmingly at the hefty Moclan. “Do your people shake hands?”

“I doubt that you would find the experience enjoyable.”

“Oh yeah?” Phaing pulled a pair of black gloves out of her belt. “I’ll try anything, once.”

Greyson took a half-step forward and puts her hand over Phaing’s glove as she tries to put it on. “Phaing, why do you want to be on _our_ ship?”

The Zhrau paused and looked up at Greyson, and then Mercer. “You are the only Union people I know. And besides, I kinda have the feeling I owe y'all something.”

 

* * *

 

“I don’t like this.” Admiral Ozawa was looking out the window at Phaing again, and now at the senior officers of the Orville.

“Consider it a personal favor to me.” Admiral Zurnoctis had a silky-smooth voice when she wanted to. “I need a break from that one, and I am fairly certain that Phaing herself would consider it a reward.”

Ozawa turned from the window and paced about the room, arms crossed in front of her again. “She is the wrong one for the wrong ship. I know a loose cannon when I see one, and Phaing should be on a straight-laced ship with a by-the-book crew.”

“Believe me, it has been tried.” Zurnoctis sighed. “I know something of the Orville and I believe it would be best for all concerned if Phaing were there, rather than any other ship… yours _or_ mine.” Zurnoctis was sitting on the corner of a small table, watching Ozawa carefully. “And no, I am not accusing you of putting all your bad Apples in one basket. However, would it be unwise ...in such situations as we face... to put one’s more ‘ _expendable_ ’ Apples in one ship?”

Ozawa’s pacing ceased. “Do you have _any_  idea how offensive your words are to me?”

“Truth trumps perceptions.” Zurnoctis met Ozawa’s angry gaze directly and dispassionately. “And the truth of the matter is that Phaing is damaged goods. Through no fault of her own she had a somewhat twisted up-bringing, and the very concept of shame is something that Phaing has no understanding of. Should a Battle Alert sound while she is in the shower, she may not even remember a towel as she rushes out to be a part of the action.”

Ozawa scoffed, a wry grin forming. “That would not make her the strangest being on that ship, but it would make her rather popular with the boys.”

“Not for long.” Zurnoctis was still being perfectly serious. “That lack of understanding, her ignorance of personal boundaries, it is a blade that cuts both ways. One of those ‘boys’ could be taking a squat on his favorite waste-reclamation device, and it won’t make any difference if he closed the door behind him or not. She would just walk right in on him and resume the very conversation he went in there to avoid having.” The Zhrau Admiral paused briefly while Ozawa's eyes grew wide, and flashed at Phaing again, she was chatting and walking slowly to the small banquette with the Orville’s unsuspecting senior officers. Zurnoctis continued; “Now, you tell me; how would that sort of thing go over on one of your spit & polish show-boats?”

Ozawa’s grin became a shade more impish as she considered that, and remembered all the foolishness she’d had to put up with from Mercer in the year just past. They enjoyed practical jokes on the Orville, and this could be the best one yet.

 

* * *

 

The Sat-Sin was sitting just outside the Ras Mentis Hall, hull quietly ticking as the sun’s rays warmed the hull, causing it to expand and flex. From a few meters away it had an outlandishly dated appearance, the black hull had a rivet cast-iron look to it. However, Malloy was not any distance away from it at all, his cheek is right up against it so that he could get a better look at a row of ‘rivets’. They were actually coin-shaped crystalline emitters, with the faces painted black but the edges as smooth and shiny as glass.

“Wow, so this is how you keep your deflection screen so close to the hull?”

The same two Zhrau were there from the last encounter with the Orville. “Yes, that’s one way. You guys just fling your’s out all around you, right?” The female Zhrau Pilot was, naturally, the one that Malloy had engaged in conversation. “You must burn up a lot of power that way.”

“We surely do. I guess you don’t have much spare power in a boat this size.” Malloy stood up straight and ran his hand along the black hull. “If feels smooth and rough at the same time. What is this made of?”

“It is an older model, aligned crystalline alloy embedded with capacitors.” She flashed him a grin. “Hit that with energy weapons and some of that energy gets re-routed, stored, and fired back at you. Not bad, eh?”

Malloy glanced at the nose of the ship, where Lamar and the Gunner were looking over the ship’s weaponry. The cannon barrel had been replaced, and the sextet of lasers were inside an arc of recessed ports above and behind the cannon. “I have heard of things like this. But, weaving all these emitters and capacitors into a hull of aligned crystal… how much work does all that take?” Malloy stood back, letting out a low whistle as he thought about the number of man-hours that went into the design, let alone the construction, of this little ship. “How could it be worth it? You could build five normal ships for one of these. And… _black_. Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the color!” Malloy started to wonder if these Zhrau were hard-headed or just playing with him. “Every species coat their ships with the color that shows up best against the black of space. For Humans eyes like mine, that means white. It helps us avoid collisions in places like space-dock, and also with search and rescue ops.”

The pilot rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t sound very tactical.”

“For battle you have all kinds of sensors that you can’t just hide from unless you just shut everything down and go drifting along like a dead rock. Who does that?” Malloy did not even notice the sour look the female pilot was giving him as he called out to Lamar. “Hey John, you think we could fit this thing into the shuttle bay?”

“Not a chance.” Lamar knew that something like this would be on Malloy’s mind. “Not unless the wings come off.”

The Gunner gave Lamar a pout. “Leave them behind? Tsk, how could we skim a Gas-Planet for fuel?” He swiped his sleeve and tapped away for a few seconds, and the gull-wings folded themselves neatly away. “How’s that?”

“Slick!” Malloy grinned at Lamar, nodding. “How about now?”

“No! This thing is over 20 meters long! Sure, we could shoe-horn it in there, but what about the shuttles? The deckhands like to have some elbow room in there.”

“We could hang it from the rafters”

“What are you talking about?” The pilot and the gunner exchange looks. “Oh! Phaing is going with you, after all? Well, how about that, I wonder what changed her mind.”

“Orders may have had something to do with it. _Ahem_!” The gunner held his hand out, and the Pilot reluctantly passed him an ingot of silvery-blue material.

Watching them do that jogged Malloy’s memory. He tapped Lamar’s arm to get his attention. “Hey, they did that at P5k-881 too!” And to the Zhrau he said; “You guys like to make bets, huh? We do that sometimes, but what was the one you made that got Phaing so upset that time?”

The Zhrau glanced at each other again, and the way they did it made Lamar think that they were tight with each other, or siblings perhaps.

“Yeah, about that… promise you won’t take this the wrong way?” The pilot asked, a bit sheepish about the subject.

“Hey, we didn’t put on our best threads to get all hostile or anything.” Lamar favored the pilot with his best ‘aw shucks’ grin, and the reactions were interesting. The female pilot sent a very similar grin back at him, and the male Zhrau gave her an encouraging nod without even a twinge of jealousy.

 _Yup_ , Lamar thought to himself, _sibs_ , they might even be twins for all he knew.

Malloy was a little miffed, he’d had his eye on the Pilot also. “You know, those flight suits of yours are kinda smokin’, are they custom jobs?”

Both of the Zhrau glanced at him, and then right back at Lamar. “Well, okay, the bet was if ol’ softy would let you drop into the Gas Giant, and I won.” The pilot shrugged, looking pointedly at the pocket the ingot had disappeared into, “Easy come, easy go.”

“ _What_  ...?” Malloy blinked and took a half-step back.

The Gunner casually explained. “The Movsoorians almost beat us to Pel, it would have been ten times as hard for Phaing to sneak into the station if they had.”

“There are three hundred people on our ship!” Lamar nearly shouted.

“And there wouldn’t have been a trace left if we had just pulled away.” The pilot held her hands palms-out at hip-level, stepping between Malloy and the impudent gunner. “We didn’t _know_ you, and we had no idea how long it would take you to fix your ship or even if you would come after us when you did. There hundred? You only had us outnumbered by a hundred to one!”

“That’s not the point.” Lamar shook his head, trying to keep his outward calm, and failing. “But… is that kind of thing normal for you people? I mean, you just called Phaing a ‘softy’, but…”

The Gunner laughed. “You don’t get it, do you? We play for keeps or not at all. Our boss is…” he glanced at the Pilot, and shrugged.

The Pilot made an effort to explain; “Nobody came for her when _she_ was a kid, that’s why she spent half a year chasing those guys down. And yes, she can be hard to get along with, but she knows her stuff, especially when it comes to strategy. Your ship wasn’t the only one… hey, where are _you_ going?”

The Gunner was wandering off, tapping away on his sleeve. He did not even bother to look up when he answered her; “Sounds like it’s time to find a new job. Best get started while it’s quiet.”

“Job… what?” Malloy glanced at Lamar, who’s face was tight with menace while the Gunner was still in sight. “I thought you guys were Cops, or something.”

The Pilot got a good laugh out of that. “Not even close, we are Mercenaries!”

“You say that as if that is… the _better_ thing?” Malloy thought he had heard pride in her voice.

“Much!” Pride, and a touch of arrogance. “We earn our way based on our fighting skills, and the competition is pretty fierce. But we should do fine, a tour with a killer like the 'marshal will look great on our resumes!”

“Yeah, about Phaing,” Lamar masked his anger by rubbing his chin. “What did you mean when you said nobody came for her?”

The pilot shied away from the question. “I think I’m done talking about her.”

“Then I’m done talking to _you_. C’mon man.” Hauling a protesting Malloy along with him, Lamar left so quickly he was practically jogging. “Don’t even start, we need to see the Captain.”

The Pilot was miffed at the sudden departure, for about three seconds. “Meh, they probably have teeny-weenies anyway.” Without giving them another thought, she swiped her sleeve and went ahead with a job search of her own.

 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Just a little theme tune-age -

 

 

 

 

[Music for this part](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRKBGBSSaYg)


	4. Theory of a madman Part 3  (fini)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this "Chapter" is done and the stage is set for further adventures... with a new wild card in a deck that was already full of 'em.
> 
> Thoughts?

Part 3

 

 

“What you are telling me sounds completely ridiculous. _Her_?” Phaing was also the subject of conversation in the room where Halsey was meeting with the Duke. “Lieutenant Kitan is immensely strong and very disciplined, that is why she is the Orville’s chief of security. Phaing is neither of those, and yet you want me to believe that she is some sort of warrior? She fought duels _for you_?”

The Duke met Human skepticism with a calm Zhrau smile. “If you have any doubts on that score, I give you leave to satisfy yourself that I am telling the truth. By… whatever means you deem necessary.”

Halsey felt a rare moment of pique. This alien was getting to him, and he was doing it on purpose. Halsey then did something that he normally would not, he turned and nodded at the Captain who had been taking notes on their meeting. “Go, see to it.” He felt a momentary twinge when the Captain gave him a wide-eyed look, but not enough of one to make him back down. “Find some of the Marines and tell them what she said about them earlier.”

The same unflappable look was on the Duke’s face when the Colonel left the room, irritating Halsey even more. The Admiral tried to calm himself by focusing on the Duke’s hair. He had never seen a sentient being with such elaborately styled locks. Mentally, he could compare it to pictures he had seen of show-horses, such as the Lipizzaner Stallions of old Austria. The thought did not make him smile, but it did wonders to restore his mental equilibrium.

Sitting across from the Duke, he leaned on the table and spoke with a hushed intensity. “Why did you go public with this matter? This sort of thing is unprecedented and should have been handled more delicately. Surely you know that!”

“Pubic?” The Duke tilted his head curiously. “What would you prefer, just the two of us, meeting in dark rooms? No, word would get out eventually, at our end if not at your own. We thought that a forthright approach would be best, and more believable once word does get out. And honestly, Admiral, what is the down-side to all this? You can portray yourselves to your people as the shining Knights that brought the barbarians into the fold simply by setting the right example.”

The side of Halsey’s mouth twitched ever so slightly. “It sounds to me as if you are mocking the situation there, Duke.”

That made the Zhrau think twice. “Well there, you see? Archives are one thing, but only personal contact can lead to a more complete understanding.”

“There are some Humans who still remember an ancient saying. ‘Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.’”

The Duke let out a surprised laugh. “Who came up with something like that?! Someone who has never been in a real fight, surely … oh, that was a good one, thank you!”

Halsey wasn’t sure what to make of that. A joke? These Zhrau could be the most literal-minded people… of the organic sort … that he had ever met. “About that copy of the Archive; I am sure that it comes as no surprise to you that we want it back.”

“It may come as a surprise to you that we _want_ you to take it back.”

“Are you saying what I think you are saying?” The pique was back, and quickly turning to real anger.

“I don’t think so! At least, I very much hope not.” The Duke held up both hands and sat back a bit. “Truthfully, that archive has become a political hot-potato and it would be a dreadful embarrassment if it were to be stolen. We want you to come get it, and to visit our home world.” He pointed skywards. “That liner up there is not there because we wanted to show off. Well, not entirely.”

Halsey blinked. “You want us to ride on one of your ships, in luxury?”

“It actually has the longest legs of any of our ships. With the combination of speed and little need to refuel, it can make the trip to our corner of the ‘lex in just ten days. Your own ships would require at least two weeks.”

Tapping the table with his fingernails, Halsey considered that. “You really do want to be rid of that thing, don’t you?”

“As I have said, there are various factions back home. The fact that we have the archive has become widely know within Zhrau space, but not the contents. We can flood the market with unclassified information from time to time, but that won’t keep the Wolves at bay forever.”

“I see.” Halsey remembered the Duke telling him that he, and the other four Zhrau present, were going to be held responsible for the success this exchange. Suddenly he felt as if he owed this man an apology. He also knew that copies had been made of the most sensitive files by now, yet offering the original to the Union certainly proved one thing.

These Zhrau knew how to play the game.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, if you do come with us on our ship, walking around armed like that all the time is not something you should do.”

Phaing finished her drink before answering Greyson. “Commander, I’ll be coming by myself. No aides, no paired mercenaries, just me. I think you can reasonably allow me a little leeway, eh?”

“That all depends.” Mercer nearly put a strange little cucumber in his mouth before pausing to take a second look at it. “What is your drug of choice?”

“Dunno, never gave it much thought. What have you got?”

Mercer dropped the cucumber-thing just as he was working up the nerve to put it in his mouth. Phaing was standing just close enough to catch it.

“Ah, fresh Ihoi, they really pulled out all the stops, didn’t they?” Phaing raised the little vegetable up to eye-level and made as if she was sighting down it for a throw straight at Mercer’s face, then sucked it into her mouth with a lewd slurp. She spoiled her own joke by making a face, one hand on her tummy. “Ooh, okay, that was one too many. I’ll be right back, small bladder you know.” As she went she grumbled to herself; “… _along with everything else_!”

“I like her.” Mercer said, trying hard to sound as if he meant it.

Greyson grinned as she turned back to the buffet. Under her breath, she advised him. “Try harder.”

 

 

Phaing left the conference room alone and stepping quickly. Distracted by her need to relieve herself of some of what she had been drinking, she did not notice three of the Union Marines leave off what they had been doing and follow her around the corner.

The Marines did not notice that Captain Mercer saw them go, and he didn’t like what he thought he was seeing. He’d come out of Middle School with a hearty dislike of bullies and a local law named for him, his instincts were telling him that this was a bad scene getting ready to happen. Mercer snapped his fingers twice and called out “Kitan, with me!” and walked after them.

He was more than halfway to the door the he realized he was still alone. Mercer turned and saw Kitan giving Jirot an elaborate goodbye, all smiles and head bobbing. She had certainly gotten over her aversion to the Zhrau, or maybe it was simply Jirot and his knack for mastering any social situation. Captain Mercer took five long strides, grabbed Kitan’s shoulder and said “ _Now_ , Lieutenant.”

 

Phaing soon knew she had taken too many steps, the corridor ahead of her had many alcoves but no doors. “… did he say take a right at the corner, or right _at_ the corner?”

Turning around to re-trace her steps, she nearly ran into a trio of Union Marines coming her way. “Hey guys, I… _‘the hell_?” Phaing was a little shocked when they pushed right into her, a Moclan and two burly Human females… but not as shocked as the Marines thought. They were angling around to box her in with her back to the wall, and Phaing reacted by instinct. Her legs folded under her until her heels touched her rump, and then her legs uncoiled with enough force to push her through the narrow gap between the Moclan and one of the Humans. Phaing knew her upper arms would be bruised by shoving herself past all that body armor, but she still managed to take a nice souvenir along the way.

She stumbled along the way, but managed to be standing up straight and as tall as she could manage by the time the Moclan had finished around, and the Marines resumed their formation. Phaing no longer had the wall at her back, but she was standing uncomfortable close to the railing now. The angle wasn’t bad and it wasn’t terribly close, these Marines would have to move awfully quickly to trap her there. But still… the floor was so far down that her backside shivered.

Mercer rounded the corner at just that moment and saw it all, including something the Marines did not see. He stopped dead in his tracks, and put an arm out to make sure that Kitan did as well. Neither the Marines nor the Zhrau had noticed him yet.

Phaing stood at a slight angle, her left hand resting on the back of her hip, and her right hand in front of her at shoulder height with the fingertips rubbing together as if she was playing with a coin. Her accent had a lazy roll to it when she asked; “And yer problem would be… _what_ , ‘zactly?”

Something in the tone of her voice made the Human Marines hesitate, and Kitan as well. The Moclan Sergeant bared his teeth at her. “You dishonored us! Mocking our efforts to maintain security here, how dare you!” He took another step towards Phaing, and the others followed up, crowding her again. “And look at you, what is that long knife supposed to be, a-“

Phaing’s body went back and down as she snapped blade free of it’s sheath in a split second. Her left leg was bent double under her again, but her right foot stayed right where it was when she had started to move, that leg at full extension. The reason for the odd arraignment of her sheath was now revealed; in one quick motion, Phaing had it out with the blade laid right along her forearm, the sharps edge outwards. She held her forearm horizontally, high enough that it was nearly blocking the Marine’s line of sight to her face. When the Marines hesitated again, Phaing looked at her weapon, as if she had just noticed it.

“ooOOoh, would you look at _that_ , its a swo-ooord!” Phaing’s voice made Mercer’s blood slam into the base of his skull, and freeze there. It was a demented parody of a little girl’s voice, with sing-song quality that made his ears feel dirty just hearing it, somehow. “Hey mithster, you wanna get a _closer_ look?”

The Marines had taken a prudent step back, and then another as they looked to each other. Phiang held what appeared to be an uncomfortable pose without any effort. One of the female Marines was the first to speak up. “Well, well,  looks to me like she is threatening us.”

“Yeah,” the other human said, with a very unpleasant voice and no stammer at all, “and the dumb bitch brought a knife to a stun-gun fight.” The hands of every Marine reached for their pistols, but before they could draw, and before Kitan could push past Mercer and take more than three steps, Phaing’s left hand came up, holding her little souvenir.

“S’not _all_ I brought.” As Mercer had suspected, and tried to warn Kitan, Phaing had acquired a grenade. “… aww, did one of you drop something?”

It was with a curious amount of satisfaction that Mercer watched the Marines pat their pockets, and the panic hit them when one of them came up short. The three of them glanced at each other again, and then back at Phaing. The Moclan swallowed. “No, its alright. She can’t know _how_ to -“

The Zhrau stroked the top of the little cylinder with her thumb, and a yellow light started flashing. “Simple weapons for simple folk. I wonder what would happen if I did that again?”

All three of the Marines took off running, bolting down the hall with such abruptness that they nearly ran over Lamar and Malloy, who had just returned from the landing pad.

“ _Hey_ , don’t you want it back?!” Phaing came up out of her crouch and cocked her arm back for a throw. No matter if she was going to throw or not, Kitan was taking no chances, dashing up and yanking the grenade out of the Zhrau’s hand, throwing it as far as only a Xelayan could. A quarter of a minute later, it could be heard bouncing down the galleries of one of the empty amphitheaters.

Phaing spun around, and for just an instant Kitan didn’t know what would happen next. The Zhrau’s eyes were open so wide that the whites were showing both above and below the eyeballs. Looking into those crazy/mad eyes put Kitan on the verge of panic, and she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. “They’re blue?”

“ _What_?”

“Your eyes. I thought they were black. But… I can really see them now.” They were indeed a very dark shade of blue, something Kitan had never seen before. “Beautiful.”

The remark somehow set Phaing back on her heels, and pause long enough to shake off the blood-high. She slapped her sword back into it’s sheath and shrugged Kitan's words off. “Yeah, well, can’t help that, now can I.” She nodded at the amphitheater, where the grenade could still be heard rattling around. “All I did was arm it, I didn’t set it or anything. Sorry if I scared you all, but… just chill, okay?”

“ _CHILL_?” Mercer came stomping up next to Kitan, his face working through a gamut of emotions. He had seen Phaing’s face too, and he had not liked what he had seen there. ‘ _She’s completely insane_!’ a voice in the back of his head was telling him. However, there was another voice in his head, and this one tried to explain Phaing with just one word.

That word was ‘ _feral_ ’.

Captain Mercer opened his mouth to bawl her out, but several things happened very quickly the derailed his train of thought. One was the continued clacking noise made by that grenade tumbling down the deserted amphitheater. Another was the strangely touching way that Phaing bit her lip and asked. “I was wrong?”

“ _You_?” Kitan glanced at Mercer and instead of answering Phaing, asked a question of her own; “Do you want to press charges against those Marines?”

Phaing snorted out a surprised laugh. “What the hell for? They were testing the new kid on the block is all." Phaing saw the emotions working  behind Mercer's eyes, and misread them. "Unless… I dunno, do _you_  think they wanted to kill me for sport?”

The matter-of-fact way she asked him that gave Mercer a hideous insight into what the Zhrau culture might be like. The last thing that made his train of thought go off the rails was the remainder of the crew arriving at his side, Lamar and Malloy coming at a jog and headed straight for him.

“Captain, we need to talk!” Lamar implored him.

Malloy was looking around, especially the direction the Marines had gone. “Hey, what was all that about?”

“Nobody wants to kill you!” Mercer blurted out, and Phaing relaxed instead of questioning him. It was as simple as that, and it knocked the wind right out of his sails. ‘ _she trusts **me** … why_?’

 

As he stood there, baffled, it was relatively easy for Malloy and Lamar to corner the Captain and take him to one side to explain why Phaing was the one and only Zhrau that they could tolerate being on the same ship with. They also spoke of a wager that indicated the other Zhrau were much colder, and… they said other things that Mercer was having trouble focusing on. The rest of his crew were gathered around, guided by some instinct, or just curious about that faint rattling sound that told him that the distant grenade had fallen into a trash can of some sort, and now THAT was rolling down and down and down … “God _Damn_ it, won’t that thing just blow up already!”

Phaing was being walked towards the restroom by Kelly Greyson, so Lt. Kitan was the only one nearby that knew what Mercer’s outburst was referring to. “If it hasn’t gone off by now it never-“

 **Kra** - ** _TOOM_**!

Everyone that wasn’t already facing that way whirled around to look at the amphitheater. The acoustics of the theaters made for a fine echo-chamber. Doctor Finn stood open-mouthed, pointing at a can that looked small in the distance as it rose above the bleachers, and then came crashing down again. Isaac had his hands halfway up, as if he was planning on surrendering to some unseen foe, and Bortus was right behind him trying to force the android's hands back down again.

Greyson and Phaing had not made it to the restroom yet, they came running back to the rest of the group, Kitan and Phaing exchanging horrified glances. The stunned Chief of Security could only say; “Oh I hope those were the cheap seats.”

“I owe you more than I thought, cousin.” Phaing said breathlessly. “You guys make awesome grenades.”

Some sort of defense mechanism made the door to the conference chamber slide shut and the windows went opaque. All of Mercer’s people were on this side of the door, and all of the people who would be raising hell about this were stuck on the other side, until they could open it. Phaing met his eyes, bracing herself for some bad news… she thought she had lost her chance to go with them.

Sometimes, it seemed as if the Fates were whispering in his ear...

Mercer started rapping out orders before he could think twice about what he was doing; “Back to the ship, everyone! Double-time, double-time, let’s go!” Phaing stepped out of their way, and Kitan hesitated, the both of them knew what had really happened here. His order confused them, but not for much longer. “Lieutenant, protect this woman from any more assassination attempts, and lets get her to the ship as fast as we can!”

The words ‘assassination attempts’ lit the fires, alright. “We found an express elevator just up ahead!” Malloy called out and sprinted that way with the rest of the crew doing their best to keep up. With Kitan to help propel her along, Phaing was in the middle of the little herd, and staring at Mercer with wide eyes.

He winked at her. “What was it you said, a ‘convenient fiction’, right?”

Phaing blinked, understanding then, and flashed him a smile. She had a very nice smile when that was all it was, but she bit her lip and looked down at herself.

Mercer nearly tripped. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, you had to go…” He glanced back, the restrooms were far behind them now.

“No, it’ll keep… I just… oof!” All of them piled into an elevator made of glass that was barely big enough for everyone, and Phaing went on as she was pressed between Mercer and Kitan. “Your ship has 3-D re-processors, right?”

The handle of her sword was digging into his crotch, and Mercer’s mind skipped past the pain to an association that made him think he knew why she as asking about replicators. “Oh no, you can _not_ use those to make weapons!”

“Huh? No, I’ve _got_ those, but that’s about all.” Mercer closed his eyes and hung his head for a moment, cursing himself for being an idiot. His inspired plan involved hustling Phaing to his ship with just what she had on with no chance to snatch up any of her possessions, wherever those might be. “You know, clothes, preferably ones that fit." She winked at him. "A toothbrush would be nice, too.” 

Clothes, that was the first thing she thought of? It could be years… “Are you sure you are okay with this?”

In the confined space of the elevator, there was no way to prevent the others from hearing this, and they started giving him curious looks, his ex-wife most especially.

“I am.” Phaing assured him. She craned her neck around to look back at the rest of the crew. “But, how do the rest of you feel about me tagging along?”

“We’ll carry you if we have to!” Malloy volunteered.

“ _You_? I thought you didn’t like me.” Phaing gave him a skeptical look.

“I like you a lot better since I met that asshole crew of yours. You know, comparatively speaking.”

“My… what?” The doors opened and everyone began to hurry out, but Phaing kept her eyes on Malloy, making him swallow hard until Lamar told her;

“They were already looking for new work.”

“Oh.. really?” Phaing shrugged and hurried along with the rest of them. “Well, as far as crews go, I’m definitely headed for an upgrade!”

 

* * *

 

On a balcony outside the conference room, Jirot and the Duke stood together and watched the Orville’s shuttle depart. The Duke’s shoulders moved with silent laughter as he observed; “That was a bit sudden, even by _her_ standards.”

“Perfectly effective, that is one launched with three to go.” Jirot was keeping half an eye on the people still in the room, still fiddling with the door. “I do hope that it means we can soon focus on other matters.”

“The Admiral Halsey said something interesting to me a little while ago. It made me wonder what the Humans suspect about our motives.” Jirot waited for the Duke to continue, rather than prompt him. The senior Diplomat of the entire Zhrau Combine did not need anyone else’s help gathering his thoughts. “He said it as if it were an aphorism; 'keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.’ What do you make of that?”

“I told you not to underestimate these people!” Jirot walked to the railing and gripped it hard with both hands. “We could be taking a terrible risk here, and not even know the full measure of it.”

The Duke stepped up behind him and laid a friendly hand on Jirot’s shoulder. “Life is risk. All we can do is manage it.”

“Manage a risk like this? You-“

“No, not just the risk.” The Duke’s smile sharpened until it was nearly as lean and cold as the blade of a sword. “We manage _life_. Ours, and all the others that we can reach.”

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The song for this phase

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cR22cfNI8I>


	5. Getting to know you, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter, I'll try to keep them this way for you all. They will come quicker this way, too.
> 
>  
> 
> The Orville is quickly sent far from the Peace Hall, on a new mission, one that soon turns into a mystery to be solved.  
> Along the way, curiosity about the new Alien on board causes certain complications...

The Orville was an hour hour away from Ras Mentis and still going at it’s best speed. Captain Mercer had spent half of that time on the comms explaining himself to several very ruffled Admirals, stretching his ‘convenient fiction’ to the very limit. He might still be sweating in out in front of the viewer if Phaing had not walked in on the interview and ignored all hints to back out. She had ended the whole thing in less than 3 minutes with some very pointed questions, and some speculation about how this would all look on her own reports to the Zhrau home-world if the crew of the Orville was not granted sufficient freedom of action to ensure her ‘protection from the more violent elements of the Union’. That put an end to the badgering, and Admiral Halsey had an oddly guilty look when he signed off.

“That’s one I owe you.” He promised Phaing, "And now it is time to have a meeting."

Again.

Everyone except for the Captain had been able to change out of their dress uniforms, and Phaing was still in her own because she had nothing else yet. She had seen nothing but the bridge and the confrence room in the last hour, part of the reason she had grown impatient enough to burst in on the grilling the Admiralty was giving him. Mercer was told that the Zhrau woman had marveled at the spaciousness and comparative comfort this ship offered. The only negative comment that she had made was regarding the exposed location of the bridge itself.

As everyone gathered in the briefing room, the Captain began;

“Once again, welcome aboard, Phaing. Now that we are safely away, I would like to go over some ground rules.”

Phaing smiled and held up a hand. “Perhaps I can save you some trouble, if I may?”

The glimpse he’d had of her worst behavior made Mercer eager to encourage her when she was on her best behavior, so he nodded and waved a hand to encourage her to go on.

“Good. I have just two points. One is that I need a secure link back to my people, so that I can make periodic reports. Tarlyn will be sending you a message on what channels I will need to use, and when. However, I seem to have left my codex in my other jacket, so I will be relying you not to peek.”

Lamar let out an awed whistle, the honorable behavior Phaing expected of them was off the charts, and Commander Greyson spoke softly, as if to herself. “We really did make an impression on you people!”

“Like a bolt of lighting out of a clear blue sky.” Phaing assured her, and then went back to her points. “Secondly, I am outside your chain of command… ah, now don’t let that make you think I am just going to run around getting underfoot and mucking things up for this crew! You are the Boss, and if you ever decide to have Bortus here spank my fanny unit it turns red, I won’t have Jack to say about it.” Mercer’s jaw would have hit the table if it had dropped any farther, so Phaing hurried onward. “The thing is, I will go nuts here if I just sit around observing all the time. Eventually, I am going to need something to _DO_ around here, especially if I am going to earn the respect of the your crew. I can give you tactical advice, but as this is an exploratory ship I don’t expect that you will be getting into many battles.”

Half the crew were suppressing startled chuckles, and the rest were groaning and looking down at the table. Mercer had been doing both at the same time, he had to clear his throat before saying; “Believe me, any help you can give us in that department will be very appreciated. Once you get settled in we can see about getting you into a daily routine. What is it that you normally do on a starship?”

It was Phaing’s turn to groan just a little, and her shoulders slumped. “That’s a bit of a problem. I know how to fight a battle with ships, but I have no idea what makes them work. I started out with dirt-side ops and that is what my best skills all come down to.”

“Dirt-side?” Greyson thought she might know what that meant, but she had never heard of any Army personnel refer to it in such a casually disparaging way.

“Planetary operations. You know, all the stuff that happens on the ground. I started out as a Scout… recon is what you say, right? Then I moved up to more conventional tactical and strategic work up through Army Group Staff levels.”

“Scouting?” Malloy slapped a palm to the tabletop. “That’s perfect for the Away Teams!”

“Away?” Phaing did not like the sound of that. “But, I just _got_ here!”

“No, ah… landing party is what you could call it.” Greyson hastened to correct her. “They generally last just a couple of hours, a day or two at most… unless something goes terribly wrong.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Issac turning his head towards her. Before he could mention his 700-year long away mission, Greyson’s hand flashed up and hovered right in front of the android’s face as she went on. “I think this could work, might be worth a try if the Captain approves.”

The Captain was already wondering how he could make that work. The competition to go on the away teams could be pretty fierce, even among the people in this room. But on the other hand, the competition to avoid the nastier ones could be just as fierce. Phaing would indeed be very helpful on those… depending on what risks the Admiralty was willing to let him take with a brand-new liaison officer. He’d have to look up the regulations on that. “Sounds good to me! Now, I think its time to take you on a tour of the ship, let the rest of the crew get a look at you.” He made as if to stand up, but Phaing shook her head, and raised her hand. “What is it?”

“You were going to explain the Ground Rules?”

“Oh, right. You know, we can cover those as we go.” Mercer settled back into his chair. “But hey, does anyone else have any questions while we are still all together?”

Doctor Finn had been ready to pounce for some time; “When can you come to the infirmary for a full check up?” She asked Phaing.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m safe from anything you folks have, and anything that might have been a risk to you was zapped out of my system before we started out for Ras Mentis.” Phaing assured her.

“That’s nice, but I still have to do a full work-up on you. We have never had one of your species here among us in the Union. If I have to put you back together again, it would be helpful to know how you were in the first place.”

Greyson grinned as she marveled at the Doctor’s ability to make that all sound perfectly reasonable, and non-threatening.

“Good point. Yeah, let’s get that done before we get to our next destination.” Something made Phaing look at the android next. “Isaac?”

“It would be helpful to know your rank or some other designation if we are going to be introducing you to the rest of the crew.”

“F-“ Phaing cut herself off before the first word was fully formed. “I…” and again, she was doing something they had not seen from her before, she was dissembling. “Its really just some honorary stuff, I’m really not, you know…”

“How interesting.” Isaac went on. “I believe that this is the closest any of us have seen you come to telling a lie.”

A gasp full of hot amazement came gusting out of Mercer’s chest, and he was not the only one that was floored by Isaac’s obtuse comment. Even more surprising was how Phaing reacted;

“Yeah, my bad.” She looked down at the table as if she was disappointed, with herself. “I never _do_ that, I just want to be able to keep a couple of things to myself.”

Isaac went right to the next thing; “Is not lying part of your code of behavior?”

“Naw, I just really suck at it.”

Even Bortus was amazed, and exchanging looks with the people around the table. Did the Zhrau have no ego in the conventional sense of the word, or just this one?

Kitan had to turn her face away and cover her mouth, doing a better job of covering her sudden grin than several of the Humans at the table. Lamar was the only one to keep a straight face, and it served him well. A memory surfaced, and he spoke one word; “Marshal!”

“What?” Phaing gaped at him. Greyson thought she saw a flicker of panic behind those alien eyes.

“I think it was one of your crew that called you that, but they said they weren’t Cops so I forgot about it.” He smiled and nodded at his own thoughts. “That would work, in Human history its a reference to a kind of lawman riding round the wild frontier fighting for justice, chasing down bad-guys and protecting the homesteaders. You know, that kind of thing.”

Malloy snapped his fingers and pointed at Phaing while looking at Lamar. “Oh man, you nailed it! I like that.”

“So do I.” Phaing favored them with a broad smile when the men had finished, and looked to the Captain. “Marshal it is then.”

 

Captain Mercer had wanted to go with his First officer and his Security Chief while they were showing Phaing around, but the mission brief had arrived just as he was leaving the room. The curse of being a Captain, or a small part of it, was the hours it sometimes demanded. Oh, he could leave the bridge he wanted to, place another crew member in his chair and go off to do something else, and that was a joy in itself. However, being Captain also meant that he had to make himself available, at any hour of the day or night, to deal with any emergency or any petty intrusion that the Admiralty wanted to make on his time.

It never really balanced out in his favor.

He also had to be the first to read a briefing of this sort whenever possible, and he settled into his office to do just that as he unbuttoned his stuffy dress uniform jacket. There was a problem in the Nyalan System and several of the ones surrounding it. It was uncommon for the Orville to get a mission inside Union space, so Mercer paid special attention to all the details.

Cargo ships had been disappearing for weeks with wreckage rarely showing up, and recently with enough frequency that Piracy was suspected. In the last week, a couple of small passenger transports had also vanished, upping the ante considerably. A trio of Union fighting ships were searching the area, and finding nothing. They needed a Bird-Dog, an Exploration ship with sophisticated sensors and a smaller footprint than a warship to flush out the Pirates, or whoever was behind this.

There were complications, of course. The the inhabitants of the surrounding systems were not being very cooperative with each other. They extended every courtesy to Union Fleet ships, but seemed to be at odds with Nyala over disputes that pre-dated the missing ships.

“How wonderful, more testy locals.”

Ras Mentis had only been a dozen light-years from the edge of Union Space, it would take them two and a half days to enter the Nyalan sector. Two and a half… it was not much past noon on the planet they had just left, which meant that they would be arriving the middle of the night by the rhythm their biological clocks were on now. Mercer sighed and flipped his display to start rotating the shifts. Dealing with space-lag was yet another of the chores that made being the Captain less than a thrill-ride.

 

* * *

 

 

The Chief of Security and the First Officer would normally be the people assigned to escorting a V.I.P. on their first tour of any Union ship. By coincidence, the fact that they were all female made it appear to be some kind of girl’s day out.

That was how Lt. Kitan suspected it could look to the crew, and she tried to put it down to her self-consciousness so that she could ignore it, and failed. She needed a break from the crowds in the corridors tracking their progress and using whatever excuse they could to exchange a few words with Phaing. Kitan would normally retreat to her office at time like these, and the glances being given to Phaing’s sword gave Kitan an idea, an excuse to do just that.

A slight detour was all Kitan had to make to bring them where she wanted to go. “If you will step inside please?” Once they were all inside, Kitan went around to her side of the desk by habit, and took a breath. “I need to examine your weapons. It’s -“

Phaing did not require any explanations, she laid her pistol on the desk and then went about removing her sword, scabbard and all, from her belt without saying a word of her own.

The Pistol had a lethal elegance to it, as would be expected of something the Zhrau made. Matte-black, it had natural wood grips and, curiously, the barrel passed between where the index and middle fingers would wrap around the grips. Kitan scanned it while Greyson leaned in to take a closer look, neither of them touching the weapon. “The power-pack for this is not Union standard. We should be able to rig something up for you eventually. I’d ask Yaphet about that, he can make any gadget work.”

Phaing nodded and set the scabbard on the desk, and slid a handspan of the curved blade free. Kitan swept the scanner over it, and then did it a second time, staring hard at the readouts to make sure of what she was seeing.

“Something wrong?” Greyson prompted when Kitan shook the scanner and tried it a third time.

“This… its just some alloy, there is nothing but metal and plastic!” Kitan looked at Phaing, not understanding. “You could have a dozen functions hidden in that thing, but its just a sword. Is it some sort of ceremonial decoration?”

“ _Just_ a sword?” Phaing grinned. “Yes, it is exactly that, and I never thought it was pretty enough to be called a decoration.” She was right about that. The scabbard was new, yet very plain. The sword had seen some hard use and was not a pleasant thing for Kitan to look upon. “No, what you see there is probably the best close-combat weapon ever devised, and by close I mean three meters or less. The beauty of this thing is that it never runs out of energy unless _you_ do, and it won’t punch through a bulkhead and cause an explosive decompression. Best of all, no EMP will cause it to shut down, and no enemy can sabotage it by hacking into your system. If that ever happens to you, trust me, you will become a believer just as quickly as I did. Huh…” Phaing inspected Kitan and Greyson’s expressions, and lost her smile, “… seems like I won’t be finding any sparing partners on this ship.”

“Oh, something tells me you will be finding all sorts of partners on this ship.” Kitan nearly dropped her scanner when she finished saying that, what the _hell_ was she thinking?! Greyson was wondering the same thing, flashing her a sharp look while she turned to Phaing to apologize.

Phaing had re-gained her smile, and with a relieved and slightly skeptical tone she said; “Really? Ah, thanks for saying so, and I hope you are right about that. I hate sleeping alone.” And while both women froze in place, she reached for her sword again, and softly said “ _Got_ -cha!”

 

 

The “gotcha”s for Phaing came back at her with interest. They walked her into the simulation room without telling her what it was until she was well inside and trying to guess what the empty chamber was for. When Greyson activated a program from the Wild West archive, complete with street traffic, Phaing gasped, hands flashing to her weapons. Greyson and Kitan both felt a twinge of guilt, yet it was also interesting to note that Phaing would use her left hand to reach for the sword when she went for the pistol with her right hand.

“Freeze simulation!” Greyson ordered as she and Kitan hastened to reassure the Zhrau that all was well.

"I thought I had stepped through a worm-hole into ... something weird. A simulation chamber, that _entire room_? But it all seems so solid!” Phaing marveled, and took a deep breath. “Oh, but … nothing smells like anything.” She swept her hand through a nearby dust-devil. “Nothing.”

“Well don’t make the mistake of trying to run through a wall or anything. You’d bounce off as surely as you would from our deflector screen. Its all made of the same stuff.”

“Ah, I see. Fun to visit, but don’t drink the water, right?” Phaing nodded at Greyson, but did not look her way. “I can’t even tell where the real walls were, but still… so big! You could do a mock-up of the bridge in here.”

“There is a program that would allow us to use this place as an emergency Bridge, but this is mainly for recreation. Most of the crew can be stuck on board for months at a time.” With Kitan’s help, Greyson steered Phaing back towards the door.

The Zhrau was looking back over her shoulder until the doors closed behind her. “You people have some wonderful toys. When can I sign up for a little of that?”


	6. Getting to Know you. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving on with the whole Alien integration thing. Sometimes it does not matter how similar a new species may look, there is always going to be some surprising strangeness when it comes to Aliens....

 

After showing her where the dining room was, it was time to take Phaing to Doc Finn.

The first thing the Doctor had to say when they walked in was “Finally,” and the second was; “oh no you don’t!” while pointing at the belt full of weapons. “How can you walk around all day hauling all that junk with you?”

Phaing obligingly unbuckled the belt and dropped it in a chair near the door, she also pulled off the jacket and threw it over the belt. What she wore under it was a sleeveless white shirt with an onyx broach at the base of her throat. The broach’s fastening put tension on the shirt, pulling the material into folds that suggested rays coming from a black sun.

“That will do for now, would you come sit on this table here?” Normally Finn would preform an examination in one of the smaller, more private rooms. However, she had heard a rumor of how unpredictable this woman could be, and despite her appearance… how alien, so she allowed Greyson and Kitan to remain. “Anything I should know before I start poking and prodding and shining lights on you?”

“I can see some of the ultra-violet spectrum.” Phaing allowed.

“Interesting, but that goes for a lot of…” Out of the corner of her eye, Finn saw the door opening. She cursed herself for not putting a nurse between her latest patient and the door, and then she cursed for real when she saw who was coming into her infirmary. “ _Damn_ you! Yaphet-“

Finn felt Phaing shove her way so hard that her backside was bruised by the table behind her. The Zhrau did not scream, the sound she made was a long, ragged intake of breath that Claire Finn had only heard twice before in her life. It was the sound that came before a gut-wrenching scream.

Phaing did not scream, all the women in the room could see that she was too terrified to make a sound. She had leapt up on the table, legs coiled under her and trembling all over. The Zhrau’s eyes were just as wide as Kitan remembered them from Raw Mentis, but with fear this time. Those dark eyes flashed to where she had left her weapons, and to what was now between her and them.

Yaphet.

“ _Kill_ it!” Phaing hissed, skittering back along the table, away from the gelatinous crewman. “ _Its a predator,_ in your sleep it-“

“Kill what?” Yaphet recoiled, and raised part of himself up a little. “Hey, what’s with the babe o-“

“IT’S _SPEAKING_?!” Phaing announced this as if it was worthy of an emergency broadcast. The trembling became violent shaking. Sweat beaded Phaing’s baffled face, she was close to hyperventilating as she neared the edge of the table. Doctor Finn’s hand was in her pocket, wrapped around the hypo loaded with sedative that she always kept handy, but it was too late now. The Zhrau was teetering on the edge of the table, in danger of toppling backwards off of it without any drugs to help her along.

“Wait, stop! Get _out_ of the way, Yaphet!” Greyson encouraged the blob to move with a sideways kick, and Phaing blinked at the way Yaphet meekly obliged her. “Phaing, c-a-l-m _doooown_ , please! This isn’t a predator, it isn’t an animal. This is Lieutenant Yaphet … he is a member of our crew.”

“Crew?” Phaing repeated that word twice more, voice weak, she was becoming dizzy from a double-shot of unused adrenaline. “Trained… enhanced interrogation …?”  
Greyson had no idea what she meant by that.

Kitan, however, **_did_** , and the meaning of Phaing’s panic burst upon her so hard that she nearly burst into tears on the spot. ‘Enhanced Interrogation” was an archaic and darkly-used euphemism for torture. From Phaing’s point of view, they had just isolated her from the rest of the crew, neatly maneuvered her away from her weapons and, with a three to one advantage in numbers thay had cornered her in a part of the room where there was no way to avoid a creature from her worst nightmares.  
As for how a gelatinous being could be used to torture people… Kitan did not even want to think about that, not unless she wanted nightmares of her own.

Kitan knew what she had to do. She snatched up the weapons belt and held it high overhead. Kitan's hold on the balt was a little awkward, her fingers were nearly pinched when she discovered that the scabbard could swing freely on a stud in the belt. “Phaing! Stay there, _I’m bringing this to you_!” That caught little Zhrau woman’s attention, and held it firm as Kitan rushed over to her. She walked straight through Yaphet…

“Hey, what the…. not even a ‘by your leave’? Jeez!”

… and right to the table, where she put the rolled-up belt, sword and all, and pushed it towards Phaing before stepping back. “Doctor, you put that hypo away or I swear I will lay you out on this very floor.”

Phaing was having a little trouble believing all this, but she snatched the weapons to her and hugged them like some sort of totem. Kitan kept herself between Phaing and Yaphet as she tried to explain, keeping her voice gentle and calm. “He is a crew member here. Yaphet does not have anything to do with security. Phaing, he works in engineering. He helps Lamar.”

“Lamar… engineering?” Phaing felt as if her head had just come up from being too far under water for much too long.

“Yes, engineering. He’s very good at fixing things. You remember, I told you to go see him about your pistol. The power-pack, right? You will need it re-charged someday.”

Her fingers were touching the grip of that very weapon, and that helped restore her balance, just as Kitan thought it would. “Yes, you did… he’s…” Phaing shook her head, and peered around Kitan to look at the green blob. Commander Greyson was pointing a stern finger at him, as if she could hold him in place by willpower alone. “ … sentient?”

Willpower or no, that was too much for Yaphet. “Sentient?! Well as _you_  already pointed out, I am speaking to you! But sue me if I know why! What a bunch of bigots, racists everywhere I go, always stepping on me or through me, you’re all alike.” Phaing’s breathing slowed, and her fear turned towards curiosity as Yaphet ranted away. “That’s _IT_ , I’m done with this crap! I’m going to … I don’t KNOW what I’m going to do, but it probably won’t be on this ship for much longer, I can tell you that!”

It was an old song, one he had sung many times before. The Women barely paid him any attention, except for Phaing. He was still grumbling when the door opened for him, and Yaphet almost didn’t stop when one of the women called out to him; “Wait.”

It was the Zhrau. He sighed, and paused halfway out to the hallway. “Whaddaya want?”

“Yaphet?” Still trembling a little, Phaing snapped the belt back in place and slid off the table, keeping her distance from the Doctor. “I … I’m Phaing, and I’m kinda feeling like the dumbest bitch in the ‘lex right about now. I didn’t know you were a _person_.” The Zhrau was not very steady on her feet, so Kitan went to her to lend a hand. a little surprisingly, Phaing leaned into the support that was offered to her as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Well… I am.” Yaphet’s bluster had run it’s course, he was down to merely grumpy now. “So you must be the new one that came aboard this morning. Your name is … Phaing?”

Something like a surprised laugh burbled up out of Phaing’s mouth. “Well screw me sideways, you are the only one that got it right on the first try.” She went to one knee in front of him, swallowing hard as she made herself face her fear. “You can _see_ me?”

“Yeah, of course… in a manner of speaking. But, its kinda like the reverse of how it is with you bipedal solids. Its more like vibrations, sonar, I get 90% of my information from sound waves and my sense of touch.”

“Oh, of course.” Phaing glanced at Kitan, and then shrugged. She put her right hand behind her back, and extended her left hand towards Yaphet. “Like that?”

The hand behind her back was not on the pistol, but it was close. Kitan kept her own hand on Phaing’s right shoulder, ready to break it if the Zhrau pulled the weapon. Phaing’s back was still rippling with nervous energy, what did she have in mind here?

“Pleased to meet ya,” Yaphet reached out with a pseudopod and shook Phaing’s hand… and quickly let go. “ _phew_! Oh, wow. Hey don’t take this the wrong way, but you could really use a shower.”

The tension in Phaing’s body dropped to almost nothing, and she nearly fell sideways into Kitan. She still had enough left for a laugh, and an ironic smile. “Don’t I know it!”

“Okay then, see you around. Ladies,” The rest of them didn’t answer when he waved his pseudopod in a vague way before snapping it back into his body, “yeah, whatever.”

Phaing took a deep breath once the door closed, and struggled to her feet. “Okay, hey… all of you should know, I’m not so batshit in front of aliens. I just thought…”

“I know what you thought.” Kitan assured her.

“Yes, you did, didn’t you?” Phaing patted her belt. “Thank you. That’s another one I owe you, and I hate being in such debt. This gets you three… no, _five_ massages. On demand, but set aside a couple of hours… for each one.”

Finn had already figured out what Phaing had thought was going on, and it was dawning on Greyson as well. The commander was horrified and a little disgusted, the Doctor was offended. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easy!” Finn marched up to them with a scanner in one hand and a sampler in the other, but she stopped short a couple of paces from Phaing. “Oh, my… Yaphet was right, you _do_  need a shower, but I am not letting you out of here empty handed. Hold still while I do a quick scan, and, Lieutenant? Some of that sweat will do, if you please?”

Dr. Finn also managed to collect a couple of stray hairs. With a new species, what she had should have been good for an hour or two of analysis. The good Doctor had no idea she had just taken the first step down the most challenging path of her career. 

 

The guest quarters were another revelation for Phaing. “I was hoping for a room of my own.”

“Then enjoy! All this is yours.”

“Thank you, Commander… ah, that must be the bed!”

“Oh no, not yet!” Again working as a team, Greyson and Kitan steered Phaing into the refresher and showed her how to use the controls. They also had to peel her uniform and underwear off when it looked as if Phaing was just going to stumble right in fully clothed. The refresher was well-named, her legs stopped wobbling as soon as the steamy water and the sonic boost from the walls hit her. A dreamy “Uhn-Hmm.... _yeah_.” was the only response to their farewells.

They dropped her uniform into the laundry-bot on their way out the door. “Damnit!” Greyson thumped a fist into her hip as they went out the door. “I was saving a stop for new clothes for our last stop. Well, leave it for another time, but that was the thing I was looking forward to. She really needs something to wear that isn’t so distinctive.”

Kitan was barely listening. “Why would she do that?”

“What, go bouncing off the walls because she thought we were going to feed her to Yaphet?”

“No. Why did she go up to him like that, after? She must have sweated off a pound and a half… and we just saw that she does _not_  have any to spare. What was that all about?”

“Facing your fear… and trying not to look like an ass on her first day.” Greyson bit her lip, and looked back. “She must have been humiliated by what she did, but it was just fear and reflexes. Do me a favor and set her wake-up call for tomorrow morning and set the door so she can’t be disturbed before then. That was a pretty rough first day for anyone, wasn't it?”

 

Malloy and Lamar managed to remain unseen as the women passed by the corner they were leaning up against.

Lamar smiled. “The lady needs new clothes? Well now, looks like it’s our cue to be helpful.”

“Look, I know what you are thinking, but we can’t go in there.” Malloy also smiled, ruefully. “Even if it wasn’t security-locked and full of nobody who is going to still be conscious in about five minutes, it would be wrong.”

“Wrong? How long did it take you to figure out a laundry bot the first time?”

“Too damn long.” Malloy admitted, “But… okay, what have you got in mind?”

“Make our selections, hack in, and have the replicator in her room do all the work.”

 

 

 

 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Music -

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBlKPLeLU_s>

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, almost made that one too long... more will follow very soon ;)


	7. Getting to Know you. Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you were curious about what the boys were up to...

“Torture? _Yaphet_?”  The next day began at more of a brunch-time for the day crew. Mercer had elected to lengthen both the on  & off-shift times to adjust to Nyalan time. Nobody had seen Phaing since she had been left alone in her room, and Captain Mercer was still trying to catch up on the gossip… a tender word to describe the kind of information he was getting about their Zhrau exchange officer. This last bit was just too bizarre for him to accept. “What in the world could gelatinous lifeforms do, _hug_ someone into compliance?”

Greyson was sitting at the table with him in the dinning room, an increasingly rare treat and one that usually involved a third party. Today that was Bortus, who was shaking his head at Mercer. “You would not say that if you knew how intrusive such a creature can be.”

“Oh, it could be a lot worse than that.” Greyson had given the matter some thought, and it had cost her a good deal of sleep. “Forget the hugs, something like Yaphet could smother you. It would be like water-boarding, times ten! And for an added level of terror, it could break your fingers or toes at random intervals. Or twist your ears off or start to excrete some kind of digestive fluid-“

“Kelly! _Please_ … I am the one trying to digest here!” Mercer leaned forward and said in a lower voice; “Plus, I am really starting to wonder what your reading habits have been like, lately.”

They had both finished eating and were loitering there to meet Phaing when she deigned to show up, Bortus had taken to joining them to get a break from the usual round of “eat this” that certain members of the crew were so amused by. Bortus glanced at a table not far away where the most persistent of them were gathered.

 

“… but, _men_ , wearing make-up?” Lt. Dan was having hard time digesting the tales from Ras Mentis. There were Aliens, and then there was true weirdness. “Humanoid males don’t do that. I mean, generally speaking. humanoid women don’t even bother painting their faces at this level of cultural development… unless they are cruising for attention.” He grinned and nudged Lamar with his right elbow. “Am I right?”

“No, its not like that.” Malloy tried to explain, for the second time. Lt. Dan meant well, but that enormous head of his could be difficult to penetrate. “Its more like… its the opposite of camouflage. Like a sign that says; ‘Here we are, come and get us if you dare’.”

Lamar was already irritated by Dan, and Malloy’s voice made him hunch his shoulders up. “Damn dude, that was the worst Gypsy accent I ever heard.”

“What? I wasn’t… Phaing kinda sounds like that, right?”

“I thought it was more like Cajun.” Doc Finn was gathering up her things, and starting to regret taking her first meal of the day with these boys instead of her own. “To be honest, I can’t tell if it really is an accent, or a lack of aptitude or interest in speaking properly. Alara, does anyone speak like that among the Xelayans?”

“Not a chance, especially that last thing you said. You would have to look far and wide to find a Xelayan that is as easy-going as I am when it comes to language-use.” Kitan was considering leaving with the Doctor, or joining Greyson. Her security interface told her that Phaing had left her room, and she should be arriving any moment.  
However, Kitan sensed that something was going on here.

Malloy and Lamar were both seated facing the entryway, at the table with the best view of the room. Lt. Dan glanced at her, and then attempted to casually ask Malloy; “So which one do you think she picked?” His eyes flickered to Kitan again, partly nervous and partly in anticipation.

Lamar grinned like the Cheshire cat, his previous irritation forgotten as his eyes went to the doorway. “Any of them will be great, but if she uses the shoes we sent along with it…”

A heartbeat too late, Kitan realized who they were talking about, and it wasn’t herself. “You guys didn’t... no, oh no!”

Malloy duked his head. “There she is… holy _shee_ -iit!”

The Doctor had made it to the recycler, and what she saw walking into the room her her drop her tray into it with a crash that brought all eyes her way, and then to what she was looking at.

Phaing strolled into the room wearing a reproduction of Raquel Welch’s wolfskin bikini costume from One Million Years B.C. _Just_ that, and a dazzling smile. She was even wearing the sloppy little fur booties. She skipped sideways when the dishes crashed, and then went back towards the Doctor to assure her that all was well.

“You made her look as if we are breaking every rule in the book just by letting her on this ship!” Dan’s hushed voice was awed, and more concerned than amused. “What were the other two choices?”

“A Mata Hari style of Belly-Dancer outfit, or a trenchcoat.”

Kitan’s head whipped around, and she practically spat the words in Malloy’s face; “Just a trench coat?”

“Of course not! There was also a Fedora, and s-sp-spiked he-he- _heels_!” Malloy was soon overcome with a fit of the giggles, as was Lamar. They fell towards each other, rocking shoulder to shoulder as they struggled to enjoy the moment without drawing too much attention to themselves. The were failing, of course. Malloy’s face was as red as his fhair, and Lamar had tears in the corners of his eyes.

“Idiots!” Kitan hissed at them. The Xeyalan tried to stop herself, but there was no way she could avoid looking in the worst direction possible. She felt her eyes go to the  
commander’s table.

Mercer was staring at Phaing, unable to process what he was seeing. His lips moved, slowly, as he wondered. “Bunny slippers… made from real Bunnies?”  
Greyson, on the other hand, was staring right at Lamar and Malloy, and if looks could kill they would have been halfway to genocide.

“ _Guys_ , hey!”

Kitan whirled around so quickly that she nearly gave herself whiplash. That was Phaing, coming straight their way and nearly upon them. She looked delighted, practically walking on air as she waved at them and talking a little too loudly for the hushed room. “Thank you so much! I almost panicked when I couldn’t find my uniform, but then I saw this sitting in that replica-whatever. You’re the best!”

Lt. Dan was already long gone by the time Phaing reached the table, and the Zhrau woman ignored the raised hands that Kitan offered in surrender. She went straight for Malloy and Lamar, who had coughed back their laughter and suddenly seemed to have forgotten what been so funny, now that she was right there next to them. All the attention that had been on Phaing was now focusing on the two of them. Kitan had heard the term ‘goggle eyes’ before, but she had never understood the meaning until she saw how the boys were reacting.

“We didn’t -“ Malloy started to say, and was cut off by Lamar’ startled exclamation; “ _How_ did you _know_?”

It was true that Phaing had not been there long enough to know about their practical jokes, even if she had understood what this was really all about.

“Oh, I didn’t, not really. The Computer gave me your names.”

The boys looked at Kitan, feeling betrayed.

“Oh no, it wasn’t her. I just looked up what historical significance this stuff had, and then I pretended to be showing a festival of classical entertainments and asked the social net who I should invite. You guys were at the top of three very short lists.” Her smile never faded, nor did the light tone of her voice. When some of the crew around began to laugh and several others clapped their hands together, Phaing made as if she thought it was for her, and did a bouncy little twirl that carried her behind both men. Bending at the hip, she leaned in and pushed her bodice between their heads, and hugged them hard enough that the sides of their heads were pressed to her, making Phaing's relatively average cleavage really stand out. “What a great present, thanks so much for making me feel welcome.” She kissed the top of each head and then swished away, booties sweeping the carpet as she moved off. “See you in the briefing room!”

The boys watcher her go, then glanced at the cat-like smile on Kitan’s face, and then at each other. Malloy whispered “What just happened?”

“I don’t know, but I think I can still hear her heartbeat in this ear.”

Despite his words, or maybe because of them, Lamar was starting to get his smile back. Malloy was too baffled to smile yet, until Kitan crisply informed them; “You made her happy. I’m not sure how, or why, but after yesterday that can only be a good thing.” Phaing _had_ bounced back amazingly well, unless one considered that she had been able to spend more than 16 hours undisturbed. With that much sleep behind her, Kitan could have worked five or six shifts back to back.

“I can live with that.” Lamar started to get up out of his seat, Malloy just a fraction of a second behind him, but they never made it halfway up. Two huge, rock-like hands clamped down on their shoulders and forced them right back down again. Bortus was standing where Phaing had a moment before, glowering down on them as only a Moclan could.

"Thank you, Commander." Kitan rapped the table to get their attention back on her. “Now, lets talk about the prohibition on harassing foreign visitors…”

 

Mercer and Greyson stood by their table as Phaing approached them. She did not fill the costume out in quite the way the starlet of old could, Phaing also lacked the stature of the woman it was designed for, the thing would have fallen off her if the boys had not made a very good guess about her size. She looked more like the scaled-down version, the hair was close to the original actress and her skin several shades darker, but there was one jarring note.

There comes a point where a waist was almost too narrow to be attractive, and Phaing’s was right at the edge of it. Mercer thought that he could encircle her with just his two hands.

Phaing looked more like an orphaned barbarian to Greyson than anything else, and Mercer felt the same way. Mercer, however, had another thought piling right on top of that one; ‘ _Wow. If_ **Kelly** _was wearing that_..’ That was as far as he went with that thought before he had to sit right back down again.

When Phaing arrived, both senior officers said in unison; “Not on the bridge.”

“Aww!” She could not hold her pout for even two seconds a giggle escaped her. “I hear ya, and I know it was all in fun, but this stuff is amazing!” Her eyes rolled as she her torso twisted a little, petting her hips. “I turned the fur to the inside, and this feels so good I can’t get over it. This all came from matter conversion, nothing organic involved?”

Greyson nodded and asked; “Good? That thing looks like it was sewn together by a blind monkey. Even the boots-“

“Oh my _gods_ , they are the best part! Like going barefoot only nicer! They tickle my toes with every step.”

She made them sound so good that Mercer wanted to try a pair for himself, but enough was enough. “Ladies, have a seat, alright?” Most of the people who had been tracking Phaing’s progress turned back around when she was seated, yet the glances never stopped. Everyone nearby remained curious about how the Captain and his First officer would deal with this woman. Phaing appeared to be the least self-conscious one at the table, until the Captain started speaking to her.

“I hear you had a bad scare yesterday.” Mercer began, eager to talk about something besides Phaing’s attire. He also had to wonder if he had made the wrong choice; Phaing’s smile flashed out of existence and her bare shoulders bunched up as she took a deep breath. Mercer looked to Greyson. “Worse than bad, I see.”

“It is something I would rather forget about.” Phaing put her elbows on the table and leaned into them, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. She had been hoping that her attire would make everyone else forget about it to… “But, not just _yet_ , eh?”

“What was it, what did you think was happening?” Greyson asked carefully. Phaing gave her a deep look, and nodded at the Captain. “Yes, I told him everything I saw.”

“I thought that was it.” Phaing spoke in a voice most people saved for their diary. “It was like, somebody finally out-smarted me and it was over. I mean, it isn’t totally clear, went a little blank for a moment there, but…”

Greyson put an arm around Phaing’s shoulders, something Mercer would have done if he had been sitting next to her. Thank God he wasn’t, there was enough of a murmur going around the room as it was. Fortunately, the room was beginning to clear out. Perhaps the gossips wanted to see what sort of punishment detail Malloy and Lamar were being marched off to.

Mercer felt a little angry, annoyed even. He was wondering if that flash of intuition he’d had back at Ras Mentis had been a lie, and he had to ask; “I thought you trusted me?”

Phaing’s midnight blue eyes met his. “You weren’t there.”

Oh… right.

“Well, I will be next time, if I can. But, if you trust me, you really have to trust the people that **I** trust, and none more so than Kelly here.” He saw the question in Phaing’s eyes, he watched her silently repeat Kelly’s name and point to the woman that had a companionable arm around the Zhrau’s shoulders. Mercer nodded in return.

Phaing straightened up and gave Greyson an incredulous look. “He just gave me your friend-name. Is that alright?”

“Only use it when it is appropriate. Small gatherings like this. And yes, it is fine by me… can I ask you something?” And instead of asking for Phaing’s real name, which could have been yet another exercise in tongue-bending, she asked what Mercer was also wanting to know; “You shook-off one of the worst panic-attacks I have ever seen very quickly, and the first thing you did was go right up to touch the very thing that-“

“Yaphet!” Phaing remembered that part of it with a startled yelp, sitting up straighter and letting Greyson’s arm slip from her. “Is he alright?”

“Is **_he_** alright?” Greyson couldn’t  believe she was hearing Phaing correctly.

“What did you do to Yaphet?” Mercer asked, as if Greyson had left something out of her report. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“I’m so sorry, Kelly, Captain. it was so stupid, my behavior… I made him feel bad about himself, ‘bout being what he is.” Phaing was more bothered by that then she was about people talking about her panic-attack. “That’s a horrible thing to do to someone!”

Greyson knew without asking that Phaing was not being overly sensitive. She was speaking from direct experience. Kelly also knew that Ed would miss the whole point, and sure enough...

Mercer ducked his head to hide a smile, he certainly was getting a work-out when it came to controlling his facial expressions these days. A fresh round of murmurs from nearby tables helped with that, and he looked up at Greyson wondering how to explain about Yaphet. Actually, that was something that could wait, this whole incident had made him wonder if spiriting Phaing away from her people as they had…. as _he_ had… was a mistake.

“Marshal,” the use of her title snapped Phaing’s attention to him just the way he had hoped, “the problem you are having is that most exchange officers have spent weeks, months even, studying the people they are going to interact with. They learn the protocols and procedures of the fleet, and also the customs and cultures that they will be dealing with. I thought that you would have had access to our archives, but my assumption-“

“I have!” Phaing assured him. “And that reminds me, its past time for the Commodore to start conferring with us, did I miss that?”

“What?”

“I may not be much for Xeno-Things, but I did study your field manuals, and the man on the scene should have started sending Warning Orders when we were 48 hours out. You also have the ability to have real-time communications at this range, has that been happening yet?”

Mercurial didn’t begin to describe the Zhrau, if Phaing was any example. She as all business now, and sounding more like a professional officer than at any time since Mercer had met her. “We have already received an outline of the situation there.”

“I know, I read it in the bathroom an hour ago.” Phaing smiled at Greyson. “Thanks for sending me that!” Mercer bit his lip, it hand not even occurred to him to do that himself. She went on; “But like you said, it was nothing but an outline, and pretty fast & loose with the assumptions that they tried to make look like a proper analysis. You can’t plan a major operation with that, it was only three pages!”

“Phaing, you make this sound like an invasion! When we get there, they will tell us what they want done.”

“That’s ridiculous! What, this ship is a key item in resolving this situation… isn’t it?” Phaing looked to Greyson, who was starting to nod in agreement, and to prompt her to go on with her ideas. “Don’t let the guy… Commodore Nadzip, right?” Greyson nodded, Mercer needed a moment to remember that this was the name of the senior Union officer in the Nyalan system. “Okay, don’t let him treat Orville like an accessory. By your own manual there are certain things he should be doing for you that he is blowing off.” She took a breath and leaned back. “Now, you said I might make a good advisor, so that is what I am going to try. That’s all this is, advice, so just tell me if this is me getting out of line… but first give it a thought, alright?”

It was more than alright. What Phaing had said rang bells in Mercer’s mind from his academy days, before he had branched away from the military side of the fleet into exploration. This Commodore was supposed to be a by-the-book leader, and if he was short-changing Orville’s crew because he thought that Mercer was sloppy, well, that just wasn’t going to happen!

“Let’s do it.” Mercer had briefly forgotten what Phaing was wearing, but when they all stood up it all came back to him. “I want you at that conference, but not wearing that.”

Phaing sighed and looked down at herself. “Duly noted. They gave me a choice, you know. According to the references, I could have showed up dressed a seedy detective or a spy on the make. Looking like I was raised by wolves seemed like the better choice.”

Greyson’s hands made fists, and her teeth were tight together when she asked Phaing; “You know, if you want to press charges, I’ll help throw them in the brig myself."

  
“Gods no, none of that!” Phaing started to wave the whole idea off, but then she stopped with a new thought on her mind. “But you know… I _am_ interested in their sim-time schedule.”

Greyson escorted Phaing back to her room to help her locate the drawer where she could find her laundry, both women grinning and plotting. Mercer smiled too, again imagining Kelly Greyson wearing what Phaing had on, and then shaking his head to clear it when he noticed that there were still some people in the room, watching him.  
It wasn’t until the incredibly mis-matched pair were out of sight that it hit Mercer; Phaing had not been wearing her pistol or sword. Where she might have been hiding some sort of weapons while wearing that outfit was yet another item he didn't even want to think about.


	8. Getting to know you (and you too) Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On to some serious business.

An hour later Commodore Nadzip found the time to sit down at his desk to confer with them over the view-screen. He was the same race as Lt. Dan, but all similarity between them was purely superficial. The Commodore carried himself confidently and spoke as if he was the living embodiment of an ‘old salt’. The oval bookcase behind him was filled with hard-copy manuals, and not a decoration in sight.

“Mercer, I am a little busy right now, what’s on your mind?” Putting on a pair of spectacles with yellow-tinted lenses, he was a little surprised to see that his viewer showed him the meeting room of the Orville instead of Mercer’s office.

“A Warning Order, for one thing. Oh, and good morning to you too, sir. Seated on my left is my new Zhrau liaison officer, Marshal Phaing, and -“

“Another damned peace-officer? This has been turned over to the Navy, and I have wasted too much time with bureaucratic tangles as is!”

Phaing met Nadzip’s bluster with calm, cold eyes. “I am here to help, not slow things down. All violence outside of warfare is crime, would you not agree?” The Commodore gave her a slow nod, appearing to take more interest in the conversation. “Then since open warfare has not broken out, a little detective work would be in order. We require certain things at this end to begin our work.”

Mercer had placed Phaing at his elbow so that she could pass him notes or whisper in his ear. Greyson was across the table, she could communicate with him using little more than a glance. Bortus was next to Greyson, to let the Commodore that they were all serious about getting what they were entitled to. The Moclan’s grave voice was the next to be heard; “We require that Warning Order, listing all known threats, all difficulties that we can expect in your area, and all the Union resources available to us.”

Greyson was next; “We would also like to have a list of all the ships that are missing, what their course, cargo and speed were at the time of their disappearance. I’d like that information to be accurate enough for us to rig up a 3-D star chart in our sim room that is as exact as possible.”

Nadzip snorted. “Isn’t that overkill?”

“No such thing.” Phaing barely looked up from her pad when she answered him.

“Oh, very good.” Commodore Nadzip nearly smiled when he asked Mercer, “How do I get one of those for my ship?” while pointing at Phaing.

Mercer and Greyson both sat a bit taller in their seats, the sides of their heads heating up as they started to answer the crude question. Phaing however, beat them to it. Staring at Nadzip through her eyebrows, she tilted her head towards Mercer. “Same way he did, go rescue one from a world of scat.”

Nadzip _did_  smile at that, and thumped his fists together. “I may have mis-read your reputation, Mercer. Zhrau, eh? So many species to keep track of… very well then! Keep this channel open, everything will be sent in a few minutes. Nadzip out.”

The screen faded to gray, and then flipped to a view of the distant flagship’s bridge. All that distinguished it from Orville’s bridge was a larger viewer and the personnel on the bridge.

“Oh, standardized bridge structures?” Phaing observed that it looked nearly identical to the bridge of the Orville.

“Yes, consoles too, it helps when personnel are suddenly transferred from one ship to another.” Bortus was being unusually wordy today, and he even continued; “That was an interesting comment, about all violence outside of warfare being criminal in nature. What opinion do your people have about something the Union refers to as War Crimes?”

“The one that matters is _losing_.” Phaing relaxed when Nadzip was no longer on the screen, but she keep her eyes on the display when she spoke and tried to pitch her voice so that it would not carry to the other view-screen. "That is how the the vast majority of Zhrau see it."

Grayson kept her voice low also as she turned to Phaing. “ _You_ can’t think that way, too?”

“I most certainly do. What can be worse that directing your people to go out, make such sacrifices, inflict damage on other people and accept it themselves… and have it end up all being for _nothing_? War is a sacred undertaking, and the goals must be swiftly accomplished or you risk the war becoming a thing unto itself, a maelstrom that consumes everything. Bortus, back me up in this, the longest war I can remember lasted 15 months, you?”

“I my Grandfathers day, the Moclan had to sue for peace once, when a war we were involved in lasted over five years.” Bortus said, his voice never wavering from its slow, absolutely precise cadence.

Phaing whistled softly, as if the concept of a war lasting that long was a new and fascinating thing to her. “Wow, how did that end up? The other side must have been difficult to start talking peace with.”

Bortus took the time to nod before continuing. “They were, until when they found out that we had already executed our High Commander and his advisors for Stupidity in the Face of the Enemy.”

Phaing’s head rocked back on her shoulders, her mouth moving several times before she found some words to fill them. “That… happened?”

Greyson met her gaze when Phaing looked to her for confirmation. “You’d have to see a Moclan court in action.”

“I think I’d rather not.”

“Captain Mercer?” A crisp voice asked from the other ship’s bridge. “I have the information you requested.”

“Already? The Commodore runs a tight ship.” Mercer rubbed his hands together. “Alright then, let’s get to work!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

At the end of the day-shift Mercer and his bridge crew all paid a visit to the Sim-room to see how things were going. There were over a dozen crew there, most of them pacing around with portable control units as they fine-tuned all the displays. On the walls and ceiling were flat representations of the five affected star systems, with the “suns” in the middle and planetary tracks and other features shown with dotted lines of various colors. Systems could be shown this way because they mostly were flat, when seen from above. The space between the walls was taken up by the kind of display that could not be shown in two dimensions; the locations of the stars relative to each other, and the last known locations of the missing ships. The courses those ships had taken were shown in red lines that faded to yellow in the approximate area where they had disappeared, yellow fading to white at destinations that they had never reached.

Mercer, Greyson, Bortus and Isaac entered together, and three of them paused just inside the door while Isaac made a circuit of the room in his herky-jerky way to inspect the displays.

“She sure is learning a lot about how we operate.” Greyson said quietly to Mercer as they watched Phaing.

“They _already_ know a lot about us, this is our chance to see how _they_ operate.” Mercer stopped talking when Phaing started looking intently at one section of the 3-D display where detailed information was scrolling away. Her hand came up at her mouth opened slightly, and she seemed to be on to something. A moment later, the hand slowly came down and she shook her head, muttering something under her breath as she turned to another part of the display.

Mercer and Greyson glanced at each other and shared the same thought; “She’s lost.”

It was a lot of complex information, to be sure, but there was also the fact that this little operation had cost some of the three hundred people on the Orville a lot of their time. Phaing would not be terribly popular if it all came to nothing, a waste of time that they could have avoided if not for the meddling Alien among them.

With nothing else to take her attention, Phaing soon noticed the visitors and came over to meet them. “Its impressive, isn’t it? Full marks to the people who rigged this up.”

“Have you been here all day?” Greyson asked.

“Yeah, and I probably will be all night, too. Lt. Dan gave me a cup of this really heavy stuff called ‘coffee’. Something tells me I will be too antsy to lay down for a good long time.” She turned to look at the wall again. “By the way, why is he hitting on me?”

Even Bortus reacted to that, although not as extravagantly as the two humans did. “If that means what I think it means, would you like us to discipline him?”

Phaing scoffed at the idea. “I can take care myself, thank you very much! And no, don’t even discourage him… if this whole project goes bust he could be the only crewman here still willing to socialize with me. I’d just like to know if he’s been put up to it by a couple of known pranksters. One look at him and I know that our species don’t have the same standards of beauty, and that’s a fact.”

“Maybe he likes you for who you are…” That sounded lame before Greyson could even finish saying it aloud.

“Not even a full day or a hundred words between us yet, _heh_ , I kinda doubt it.”

“I’ll have a word with the pranksters.” Mercer promised and stepped past Bortus to get a better look at the displays. “ _Our_ people did all this? Very nice… any theories yet, Marshal?”

Phaing sighed. Someone had called her a Peace Officer, and so she had felt obligated to give it a try. Like so many things, it was harder than it looked. “No, and I have to admit, I was a little surprised that so much cargo is flitting around in a civilization that has such reliance on replication-technology.”

Lamar and Malloy came into the room at that moment, together of course. Mercer hastened to explain before he was interrupted. “There are some things that are too complex or just plain slippery to be cost-effective, if the shipping distance isn’t too great. Complex machinery is one category, and there is also diamond. Then you have things like antiques and delicacies like fine wines that _can_ be re-produced, but its just that people prefer the real thing.”

Greyson was curious to see if Phaing had done her homework before diving in, so she asked her; “What were the missing ships carrying?”

“This one over my head was mostly filled with Mercury containers. That must be another one that is too ‘slippery’ for your replicators … hmmm, useful too.” Lamar and Malloy arrived behind the commanders, but they didn’t interrupt as Phaing went on. “That one had some heavy compounds, this here was a mobile repair shop, the far one up there was loaded with land/air vehicles, that big fella out by itself was a fuel-tanker, must have been-“

“Fuel?” Mercer stepped up to get a closer look at it. “Oh, no, that is a water carrier. It must have been headed to a major station. Water can be replicated, but doing that in bulk is a serious pain.”

“Oh, water then.” Phaing ran through the rest of the list in her head. “Machinery, Agro gear on this last one, and mature plants. Guess that will soon be an obsolete cargo.” She tapped her hand-console and two red lines flashed. “And here are the two that are a little hard to think about. Passenger liners, combined with the crews of the other ships, that’s 1,550 missing _people_. Lots of young ones, hardly any old folk.”

Mercer was satisfied that Phaing was working hard, even if it had not produced any results yet. He turned and faced Lamar and Malloy, who were both gazing up at the displays. “Yes?”

“Hmm?” Malloy seemed startled that his Captain was eyeing him like that. “Oh. nothing, we just wanted to see if we could help out.”

“On your free time?” Interesting, and not totally believable. One of them, maybe, but both? “A new toy to check out, is that it? Well, can’t blame you there, its… ” Mercer stopped when both men’s eyes fixed on a moving point nearer to ground-level. He looked that way himself. Phaing had shucked her jacket and was slowly walking away, squinting at a display on the floor of the room… and offering a fine display of her own posterior.

A new toy, indeed.

Mercer stepped in the way of their vision. “That reminds me, do either of you know why Lieutenant … um, a _member_ of this crew has done something that would have taught her what the term ‘hitting-on’ means?”

“What!” Malloy was instantly ready to burst out in laughter.

“On _her_?” Lamar was thunderstruck. “Who did?”

Both men were too surprised to be faking it. Mercer ‘shush’ motion with his hand. “Okay, I thought you might be behind it. Do _not_  do anything about this!”

“Oh no, that’s against the rules.” Malloy assured him.

Lamar nodded. “Yeah, whoever had the stones to make the first move gets to take his shot, no problem.”

“Glad to hear it.” Behind Mercer, Phaing made another frustrated sound and stamped the floor. Mercer made eye-contact with Greyson and nodded towards Phaing.

Greyson went to the Zhrau woman and put a hand on her shoulder. It was one of the strange things about her, being touched never seemed to offend Phaing, instead it had a soothing effect on her. “Hi. Hey, lets have a little get-together, just us girls. I think you need a little stress-free time.”

“But this-“

“Will keep, and you should be able to see it more clearly after you have put it out of your mind for a while, and get a good night’s sleep.”

As Greyson guided Phaing out the door, Malloy watched her leave. “Bummer.” And when he remembered Mercer’s news about a possible suitor, he added; “Double-bummer.”

Lamar almost laughed out loud, and elbowed Malloy sharply thinking that Malloy had been just as entranced by Phaing’s natural hip-sway as Lamar himself been.

By luck, Mercer had not heard or seen any of that, he was trying to get Isacc’s attention. Bortus had already wandered off to stand in the center of the room and take in what a Moclan considered a work of art; the cosmos as it was.

Mercer had to admit he felt the same way. “It really is something, isn’t it? I didn’t know we could make something like this, and that it would look so good.”

“Thank you.” Isaac said as he reached them.

“ _You_ did this?”

“No, Captain, I simply supplied the basic ideas and the parameters of how the information should be displayed. It is pleasing to see how well my ideas were translated into reality by the crew.”

“They have something to be proud of, no argument there.” Grayson was looking at Isaac, not the holograms. “What is your theory about what happened?”

“I have nothing to offer.” When all three men blinked at him, and Bortus came over to hear what Isaac was saying, he continued; “I cannot add anything to the theory that a Pirate ship is behind all this, I have no theory about what will happen next or where the missing ships and personnel could be now.”

Mercer sighed, androids were not much good for certain things, especially when chaos was involved. “Could this be the result of some natural phenomena, like one of the dangerous patches of space that we have run into?”

“Negative. No natural disaster covers to wide an area, and for it to have moved to intercept all these ships would involved an improbability so vast that it merits no serious consideration.”

“That was about as unequivocal as it gets.” Mercer had nothing to add, he had no ideas either. All four of them paced around, looking at the marvelous display that showed them everything except a solution. Malloy and Lamar also stayed, Lamar was playing particular attention to the manifests, and Malloy did not want to be rude and leave him behind.

“Huh…” Lamar said, and said it several times as he stood there.

Finally, Malloy had enough and asked “What?”

“That’s everything you would need to start a colony. Pretty basic, but there is a shipment of replicators in there.” More replicators was something that all replicators were programed NOT to be able to manufacture.

“Yeah, I guess so. Heh, I think the pirates must have been pretty disappointed with some of their hauls. You can’t get good barter with water or a grove of Apple trees!”

“Yeah… so random.” Lamar stayed for an hour, feeling as if he should know what was going on out there, and still drawing a blank.

 

* * *

 

Doc Finn’s quarters had a dining table large enough for four, a rarity in personnel quarters aboard the Orville. She set down a bowl of farina with a dollop of honey in front of Phaing, along with a glass of soy milk. The Zhrau smiled gratefully. “For me?”

“Of course its for you! You haven’t eaten anything all day, and I want you to stick to simple things like that until I can do a full work-up, so we know what foods will be good for your system.” Finn sat down across from Phaing, Grayson and Kitan rounded out the group. “Call it an incentive to get yourself back to my infirmary so that I can finish my work.”

“I’m surprised you want to see me back in there, at _all_.” Phaing tasted the milk, and then downed half of the glass in one go. “Oh wow, that was just what I needed!”

“After your first experience with coffee, I’m not surprised. Just slow down a little if you want to keep it down.” The other women also had plain-looking white food of a different sort; vanilla wafers and cream sherry. The Orville crew chatted among themselves to give Phaing time to empty her farina, which she did with relish. Finn noted that Phaing could not have done a better job of emptying the bowl out if she had licked it clean. Once she sat back with a satisfied smile and both hands over her tummy, the focus came back to her.

“When will we get to use your real name?” Kitan asked.

Phaing suppressed a burp as she answered. “Kelly here can use it any time she likes, but…. it has four syllables.”

“Oh hell no!” Greyson laughed and shook her head. She lifted her second glass of sherry, which was nearly ready for another refill. “Not until I have a chance to practice it alone, just barely got your alias right. How many names do you have, anyway?”

“All Zhrau have three different names. We have the name we use among our family, a name we use among our people, and another for everyone outside of those. Yes, an alias, and it’s a tradition that goes way back. Oh, and a few of the most old fashioned Zhrau have a fourth name that their mothers whisper in their ears when they are born, to confuse the evil spirits that try to haunt those new to the world.”

Kitan wagged her glass and said with a rueful voice; “I once dated a man who insisted that he had the soul of a dragon.”

Greyson winced. “I hope you made him pay for all the drinks.”

“I wish I could have.” Kitan sighed. “Starving artist.”

“ _All_ artists should starve!” Finn said with authority, and raised her glass. Kitan and Greyson joined in, but not Phaing.

“Oh what’s this now?” Greyson asked with a light giggle and curious light in her eyes. “Is there an artist on this ship that you like?”

“No. Starving is… awful.” Phaing’s quiet comment had a dampening effect on the gathering that she noticed, and attempted to cover for. “I mean, I-“

“You are speaking from experience.” Greyson whispered. “Again.”

Phaing pulled back from her, and the Doctor took over the conversation; “I know the circumstances of your presence here might make this seem like a joke, but let me make sure you know that you can tell us anything. That is especially true in my case, look up the meaning of Doctor-patient privilege and get back to me if you need clarification on that.” Phaing gave Finn a skeptical look that the Doctor fielded perfectly. “I may not be the one you want to talk to most in this room, but you _can_ , and probably should, whenever you feel bad or unsure about what you have to say.”

After a pause, Phaing lifted her glass and tipped it to Finn before downing the last of it. “Alright, but remember, _you asked for it_.”

“I did.” Finn looked at the empty glass. “Would you like to try some of what we are having? It should be safe enough, but go slow and if it tastes wrong then just stop.”

Phaing leaned over and plucked up the bottle, and for a heartbeat it seemed as if she was going to drink straight from it. But instead, she sniffed at it, and set it right back down. “Oh, what the hell…. you gave _me_ all the good milk and sit there drinking the stuff that went bad? That's some impressive hospitality, but no wonder your glasses are so small!”


	9. Getting to know you (and you too) Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And now it all comes together, for this little chapter.  
> But not exactly the end, yet.

 

 

With just two hours remaining before they entered the Nyalan system, Mercer went to the sim-room to take one last look around. The only new information that had come their way was of another missing passenger ship, bringing the total of missing people to two thousand. There was also the odd news that some wreckage had been located and analyzed, showing that it had not been weapons-fire that had sheered bits of the hull off a missing ship, but cutting tools.

“There goes Phaing’s last theory,” the Captain muttered to himself as he looked around, “not that we had any of our own.”

“Which one was that?” Mercer had not noticed Kitan following him into the room.

“Oh, hello again, Alara. Well, she said that the Zhrau send out cruisers as Commerce Raiders to hunt enemy civilian ships in time of war. The idea is to force their enemy to organize convoys. Doing that protects the ships, but it also slows them down so much that your total shipping capacity is reduced thirty or forty percent. It is the sort of thing I was afraid the Krill might try, but no… they don’t use cutting lasers when weapons can do the job.” He glanced around the room. “Did Phaing finally give up?”

“In a way.” Kitan pointed to the corner nearest the door Mercer had just come through. Phaing was laying flat on the floor using her folded jacket for a pillow. She appeared to be sleeping, and the half-dozen crew still in the room were giving her a wide berth. “She crashed hard after pulling another long shift. Back to this idea… how many ships would have to be lost for the Nyalan’s to start getting serious about convoys?”

The captain spoke to the nearest console. “Show all traffic… and use subdued lighting for it.” Mercer knew what to expect, and the result was as dazzling as he had feared. The result of his order was to create a webwork of paths that drowned out all else, so dense that it was hard to see anything but the stars. ‘Makes our little problem look pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?”

“Whoa!” Malloy strolled in and held up both hands as he walked in. “Trying to give us retinal burn, or teaching us the hazards of interstellar navigation?”

“You’re giving this another shot?” Kitan was sure there must be some ulterior motive for him to be there, and she was right.

Malloy shielded his eyes and knelt, peering around. “I’m looking for John.”

Kitan and Mercer shared a look, _of course he is_.

The array of criss-crossing gray beams faded out, and Malloy caught sight of Lamar. “Hey buddy, wanna hit the breakfast bar before we drop into the middle of this mess?”

“You have one hour to be on the bridge.” Mercer reminded him as he left the room with Kitan.

Lamar slowly came to Malloy, still looking up and around him at the displays. “Did you see that?” he asked absently, walking backwards for the last few steps.  
“Yeah, it was all I could see for a second there.”

“Did you notice that all of the traffic passing through the systems made it?” Lamar was was tapping the side of the pad, a habit of his when he was on to something. “Only the local runs are being affected, mostly stuff headed into Nyala.”

Malloy forgot about breakfast. If Lamar was on to something, he wanted in on it. “You have an idea! That’s great! Does it have something to do with what you said yesterday, about a Colony?”

“It… _might_.” Lamar allowed, his mind not yet fully back in the room with Malloy. “You would only need one more thing; about a thousand more people… and would be self-sufficient. We may have been looking at this the wrong way. What if these ships weren’t taken, but had just up and left, of their own free will. The people, I mean, or at least the Captains and crew. What if they have had enough and want to strike out on their own?”

“Well, that would fit, but we’d never ben able to prove it. Those ships must be long gone by now if … oh snap!” Malloy snapped his fingers for emphasis. “No no no… they can’t! Most of those ships are unarmed, and the ones that do have weapons are pretty weak. They were talking about convoys when I came in, what if these ships are gathering together for protection, getting ready to go in one group once they have everything they need?”

Lamar nodded, and ordered the sim-room to display possible meeting points if all the ships had aimed for a point convenient to all. A point which would be remote enough to allow them to leave Union space without being observed.

There was just one, an unused and uninhabited system in the far corner of the room.

The two friends exchanged a high-five, knowing at a gut-level that they were right, they had solved the puzzle. “We need to adjust our heading and let Nadzip know… what?”

Lamar was shaking his head before Malloy could finish the sentence. “I heard about that Commodore, he’s a real hard-ass. We have nothing but a theory. He’s going to put all our ideas through the wringer, pay-back for us being all by-the-book.”

“Oh hell, your right.” Malloy could see that happening, and taking just enough time for the last ship to vanish, along with all the rest of them. “It might already be too late, unless the hijackers make a mistake. Or they just-“ Malloy gasped, an idea of his own came to him, one that made his hair stand on end.

“Hey, don’t hold it in, I don’t want to see steam start coming out of your ears.”

Prompted by Lamar, Malloy put his thoughts into words. “We could trick the Hijackers into making a mistake… and trick Nadzip into doing the right thing at the same time.”

“Oh, I’m not gonna like this… aren’t I?” Lamar had a rare look on his face, as if he was thinking that they might be going too far this time.

Sure enough, Malloy asked. “We’re right about this? I mean, we’re SURE about this?”

“Yes, we are.” Lamar said firmly, meaning that HE was sure.

“Okay.” He glanced around. There was nobody close enough to overhear them that was still awake. “But we need to move fast, and we have to get to one of the shuttles and tweak it’s transmission signature a little.”

As soon as they were out the door, Phaing’s eyes flashed open, and she sat up without a trace of sleepiness and followed them without being noticed.

 

 * * *

 

“Oh crap, you want _me_  to read this?”

“John, you have to! I have been on the bridge while we were talking back and forth, one of Nadzip’s people might know my voice. Sorry, my scheme, but it has to be hour mouth.”

“You know, if we had time I’d tell you… oh hell, here we go!”

The men were alone in a parked shuttle lit by only the display lights, Lamar crouched over the comms with Malloy coaching him. “You got this, its rigged for audio only.”  
“Yes, what is it?” The voice over the comms rang out over the speaker with crips impatience. Not Nadzip, it sounded more like the adjutant that had been sending them current events bulletins. “ _What is wrong with this channel_?”

“Our secure transmission gear was damaged by an ion storm.” Lamar’s voice was a bit breathless for a very real reason, and added the right note to the fiction they had concocted. “We have a priority message that must be sent in the clear.”

“ _No_!” the voice over the speaker crackled. “ _You can’t DO that_!”

Both crewmen of the Orville were so intent on the comm panel that they failed to notice Phaing creep into the shuttle.

“A task force including two class-A warships with full escort-“

“ _STOP! Stop, What the HELL are you DOING_?!”

“-will be entering your area in approximately 100 minutes.”

“ _ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMNED MIND_???”

Lamar cringed as he continued, but Malloy had to slap his hand over his mouth and back away to keep his laughter from being heard over the comms. Turning away, he caught sight of Phaing, eyes wide and standing just a few paces away.

John Lamar could not see her, and he never missed a beat; “The lead Scout ship will arrive first and immediately begin a sweep that will illuminate all the ships in the area, you must stand off, the intensity of the scans could be harmful to your personnel.”

The voice at the other end now sounded more distant, as if he was speaking to the people on the other ship; “ _He’s crazy, just keeps on going_ -”

“It is vitally important for you to alert the Nyalan authorities that we will be needing more Exotic Matter when we arrive, the Cruiser Paducah is running with reduced stocks and will need replenishment.” Lamar added that as a personal touch.

Sounding like a broken man was at the other end, the voice limped along; “ _Please… I’m begging you …. just stop_!”

“Oh no, not just yet.” Lamar grinned to himself before taking one last shot. “And have the Commodore’s confidential dispatches ready for the Orville to-“

“ _ **I’M GONNA RIP YOUR LUNGS OUT YOU SON OF A**_ -“

Lamar slapped the console to break the connection and pushed himself away from it to share a laugh with Malloy… and found that they were not alone. Malloy was nearly bent double, with his hand to his mouth and stomping on the floor to hold his laughter to a reasonable level. Phaing was right behind him, and Lamar felt a bolt of panic shoot through him, until he saw that she also had her hand over her mouth, and had her other hand on her stomach. They dropped their hands and Phaing nearly dropped to her knees when Lamar looked at them, and he could not help joining in.

Both of the men found it difficult to stop, and a good part of it was relief. The peculiar Zhrau woman wasn’t so bad after all. Phaing was also the first to speak, albeit with some effort; “Do you… (sniff) … think it will… work?”

“You heard the whole damn thing, didn’t you?” Malloy flopped down in one of the chairs.

“Yeah, I wasn’t sleeping back there, I was… _hick_ … trying to concentrate.” She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Will the hijackers buy it?”

Lamar shut the console down and shook his head. “Maybe not, _probably_ not, but every Captain of a ship who's comms officer is even halfway awake hears that, and they will all be thinking about it. They will probably be getting ready to bolt, and when we pop in right on top of them they will will have to believe it. It will be like flushing a pond full of Ducks.”

“Then Nadzip better get ready.” Malloy struggled to get back up. “We’d need to get to the bridge, he may have already figured this out... could be reaming Mercer out already. And even if he didn’t, we have some explaining to do.”

Lamar and Phaing helped Malloy up, and the Zhrau woman suddenly looked concerned. “Hey, are you guys going to get into trouble for this?” The way they grimaced told her all she needed to know. “If starts to go sideways, just tell them I made you do it.”

Malloy straightened right up and nearly hugged her, while Lamar could only say; “Really?”

“Hell yeah. I would have anyway if I’d known what you were up to.”

“So… we’re cool, about the clothes too?” Malloy nearly bit his lip as he asked that, but pushing his luck was a way of life for him, and Lamar looked as if he’d like to know the answer to that, too.

“Sure, oh! You want your sim-time back? Guys, I didn’t really want it. What I _want_ is for you to share it with me, teach me how to get the most out of that thing.” Phaing chuckled. “And the clothes were fine, really. I would have had to fold one of the bedsheets into something wearable if it weren’t for your little gifts.”

“That might have been even better… oh! Oh _hell_ yeah.” Another great idea came to Lamar. “Have you ever heard of a Toga Party?”

“You want to invite _me_  to a party already? Oh, if only you knew…” Phaing had one last comment on the way out of the shuttle; “What kind of name for a ship is ‘Paducah’? That’s the sound this shuttle would make if you bounced it off the flight-deck.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It went like clockwork.

The Orville arrived above a bloated Red Sun’s north pole, a full 20 minutes before Lamar had claimed it would in that transmission. A flock of ships hurried out of the asteroid field, trying to get clear of the rubble they had been hiding in so that they could fire up their faster-than-light drives. Guided by Orville’s scans, Nadzip’s ships boxed them all in before they ever had a chance. The Orville swooping in behind them broke any thought of resistance that the would-be colonists had, and that was the end of it. There was no heavily-armed Pirate ship, only a gaggle of slow and vulnerable civilian models. All of them were rounded up without any fighting, and by the end of the day they had all been passed on to the local authorities.

Commodore Nadzip was in high spirits when he spoke to the crew of the Orville for the last time, from the viewer on the bridge. Mercer made sure that all of the people he thought deserved the credit were there, with Lamar standing at his right shoulder and Phaing to Greyson’s left.

“Well Mercer, your methods may not make you any friends in the Admiralty, but the results speak for themselves. You will get my best recommendation from now on.” Nadzip was wearing those glasses again, and they made it hard to tell who he was looking at. Mercer suspected that this may have been the purpose he wore them. “I suppose you will be headed out into the void again, off chasing the gray areas on the map?”

“Before we do, there are a couple of things I wanted to mention.” Mercer was very glad that the Commodore was not holding a grudge. Not to his face, at any rate. “But the real work was done by my crew-“

“Yes, yes, YOUR crew, Captain. You can detail their accomplishments in _your_ own report to the Admiralty, thats what they are for. What else was on your mind?”

Mercer wondered why Nadzip could not be a little more pleasant when he had something to celebrate. “Very well. Were the captives all rescued safely?”

“ _What_ captives?” The Commodore reached into his desk and came up with a small, twisted cigar that looked as if it had been soaked in some very dark rum. “They were all in it together.”

“What?” Greyson was alarmed. “The Nyalans are going to charge them as if they were willing to go along with this?” People on the Orville had assumed that hundreds of civilians had been held as an unwilling work-force by some madmen who wanted to set up a kingdom of his own. It had happened before.

“They _were_ all in on it!” Nadzip was so firm about his information that everyone within the sound of his voice had to accept is as fact. “There has been some tension between the central planet and the rest of the worlds in this sector. A few thousand people decided that they had enough of politics and packed up to start over somewhere in uncharted space. Fools. Double-damned fools for thinking that they could get away with it.”

Lamar tensed up. “They just wanted to leave?”

“Yes, and take a considerable humber of Union ships with them.” Nadzip squinted at Lamar as he lit his cigar. “Why, is that a problem?”

“Why _is_  that a problem?” Kitan turned the Commodore’s question back at him. “This is a money-less society, so this isn’t a matter of theft, and people can move about freely in the Union. Why is this even an issue?”

Nadzip appeared to become bored with the conversation. “Care to enlighten your young and idealistic one over there, Mercer?”

“Its complicated.” Mercer was of two minds about this himself, but he knew which mind the Commodore was expecting him to use while he was watching. “In most cases of this kind, and they are pretty rare, it is usually a case of some odd little cult, or misguided adventurers who have no idea what they are getting into. These people won’t be jailed, most likely, but they will be counseled and their mental states will be examined. If they still want to leave by the time everything is all sorted out-“

“Which will probably take years!” Lamar did not sound happy about what he had done anymore. He was starting to sound guilty, and depressed.

“Yes, and then what? Something carefully regulated, for people who wanted to escape that very thing?” Kitan sounded more peeved than she had before, and Mercer glanced her way. He also caught sight of Phaing, and then looked away quickly. Her attention was so sharply focused on this discussion that Mercer was forced to think of her more as a member of an Alien society, and less as an individual.

He hated doing that.

Greyson was ready to take up the slack when her Captain hesitated, and said; “Look, there are procedures, and there are reasons for them. You just can’t let thousands of poorly informed people go sailing off into the unknown.”

“ _We_ do that all the time!” Even Malloy was joining in now.

“Their actions are an affront to the State.” Phaing’s voice was toneless and as precise as it could be within the limits of her accent. “Could the Union survive ignoring such a challenge? How many more would arise if it did?”

Those were chilling questions. The way she phrased them was a challenge to the image of the Union that most of it’s members cherished.

Mercer thought he understood; ‘ _she is testing us, those were_ not _rhetorical questions_ ’ and he was glad he had been seeing her as a Zhrau at that moment, instead of a person he was coming to like and respect.”The Union does not work that way, I thought the information you have confirmed that. That is why you are here with us, right?”

 

Phaing did not answer verbally, she only stared at him, and gave him a shrug that could have meant anything. 

Commodore Nadzip took off his glasses and cleared his throat, ready to join in the conversation again. Mercer was glad, until he heard the words being used; “Marshal, how would you like to transfer to a proper warship? I mean, _my_ ship.”

All eyes went to Phaing as she considered the offer. Everyone on the bridge knew that she was attracted to the military, and understood the military better than she did most other things. The Commodore and Phaing had no difficulty communicating with each other, and his ship was more likely to see what was called ‘serious action’ than the Orville. It must have been very tempting, but the hand of fate intervened before Phaing could make up her mind.

She saw his eyes shift to someone just entering the bridge. Nadzip pulled back just a little, and flicked an ash from his cigar at the screen with a distasteful huff. It was as if he was trying to discourage a bug from approaching any closer, and Phaing turned to see Lt. Dan handing a data-pad to Lamar. Barely able to look at the screen, Lt. Dan turned and fled the bridge as soon as he was able. There was obviously a history between them, and when Phaing glanced back at the screen she saw the commodore snorted and watched Lt. Dan leaving with a contemptuous sneer. Without saying a word Nadzip had humiliated the young officer in front of his co-workers.

… oh we’ll just see about that!

“Danny!” Phaing called out as Lt. Dan entered the corridor just off the bridge. He hesitated, unsure if she was even talking to him until she continued. “Hey hon, stop by more room about mid-watch, I’m going to be working a little late today. ‘Kay?”

“Ahh… yeah, sure thing.” Lt. Dan managed to avoid stammering, and his smile wasn’t too forced as he added; “Fay.”

Everyone on the bridge was having trouble keeping their mouths closed, and some were not even bothering to try. Phaing forced her face to relax into a perfectly bland expression as she turned back towards the screen, and the glowering Commodore. “Yeah, well, I’ll take your offer under advisement. Was there anything else?”

Nadzip knew a convenient fiction when he saw one, and he also knew why Phaing was putting on her little act. Rather than make any effort to make amends he snapped; “Far be it for me to put a crimp in your social life. _Over and out_!”

Greyson rounded on Phaing as soon as the screen went dark. “Why did you do that?” She had not just refused the offer, she had also closed the door on what could have been a useful connection. Career officers _never_ did that if they could help it.

Phaing bared her teeth at the screen, letting her anger show as she sucked in a heavy breath. “Because I HATE fokkin’ bullies! I’d rather sit around watching Tarantulas chew on my eyelids than serve on a ship under that guy.” She looked down to see Malloy hunched over his console, his shoulders shaking and head down. Watching him laugh made Phiang wish that she had something to laugh about. Glancing left and right she saw Lamar and Kitan both looking at her curiously. “Oh no, I’m not a tease, not _ever_. If Dan shows up I won’t blow him off. Now… you two had some interesting things to say.”

“We did?”

“What?”

“About this idea of people just being able to go off an do their own thing. I feel like I am missing something important here. You know that part of the reason why the Union is so interesting to my people is this concept of personal freedom. It sounded like … I dunno, would that come under the heading of ‘liberty’?”

Mercer stood and grinned at the three of them. “Its almost time to pack it in for the day, why don’t you all knock-off early and go talk about it?” He waved Malloy back down into his seat before the helmsman could join them. “Not you! I need you to lay in a course for the spin-ward frontier that won’t tangle us up with the mess around system PQ-17.”

Malloy nodded and sat back down, still snickering and muttering to himself. “Lieutenant  _Dan_! May the force be with you.”

Issac, who had taken no interest in earlier conversations, asked the Captain; “Why the frontier? We have received no orders yet.”

“I am anticipating our next set of orders. Admiral Halsey did say we have a good record against the Krill, and there are lost of unexplored systems in that direction.” He settled back into his chair and turned to Greyson as he went on; “And, something tells me that putting some distance between us and Nadzip can only be a good thing.”  
Greyson acknowledged him with a smile and leaned his way a little. Nodding in the direction Phaing had just departed, she said; “You would have been upset if she left, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll admit, the more I find out about her, the more I like her… and the more I start to dread her people. If the rest of them are not as sincere as she is, I have to wonder what we are getting ourselves into. If their government is what I suspect…”

“What, a bunch of stone-cold Fascists?”

“Yeah… that.” Mercer's face twitched just a bit. Grey might be over-stating the trouble with Phaing's people at their Leaders, or she might not. Their good humor fled as the senior officers watched Malloy deftly aim the Orville into the depths of space and launch them into one of the darker corners. “We need to get a lot more serious about learning what we can about them.”

Greyson tried to think of something to say that would lighten the mood. “Maybe Lt. Dan will have something interesting to say.”

“Only if he has the nerve to follow through.”

 

 

* * *

 

Late that night, Phaing answered the chime by opening the door with the control in the doorframe. She had not learned to control the door remotely, but she did remember to throw on a robe before showing herself. As soon as she saw who was there, she sighed. “Everyone knows why I said what I did to the Commodore. So, honestly, why are you here?”

Lt. Dan stood there with a flower that probably had no meaning in Zhrau culture, and a framed slice of a Nautilus fossil that he had picked up on Earth during his academy days. “I wanted to thank you, I knew I couldn’t sleep until I did, so…”

Phaing accepted the gifts, her hands almost as awkward as Dan’s words were. She wasn’t sure if she was being rewarded for bad behavior or if he really meant it. At least Mercer had passed the word that Dan wasn’t doing this because he was being pressured to do it, which made her a little curious. “And?”

“And… well, I guess I am a little like you. Its the middle of the night, I’m alone here, and I kinda hate that.”

She thought about that for a moment. Without saying a word, Phaing half-turned and leaned against the doorframe, nodding for him to come inside.

 

 

-— _that_ part of the story will be described in an epilogue that will be posted here tomorrow—-

 

And as for the music -

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j741TUIET0>


	10. part 6; (in)Decent Interval

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This serves as the end-point for Getting to Know You, it is not the stand-alone piece the tittle suggests, but I like it well enough to give it a little something of its own.

Part 6… an epilogue for Getting to know you;

 

(the music playing at the start [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT4d1LQy4es](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT4d1LQy4es) )

 

 

Some time later, Lt. Dan was kicking back in a comfortable chair next to a window, swirling a drink with one hand and twirling a smoldering cheroot in the other. He basked in the moment as music played and red & green lights blinked over the potted plants behind him.

“So we talked and shared some ideas. Phaing is insatiably curious, I guess that goes with her current position here, and I managed to score some points by showing her how to get certain things replicated,” he swirled his drink to demonstrate, “and by hearing her out when she wanted to get a few things off her chest. I’m not kidding, all I did was hear her out and the next thing I knew, I was getting a massage. Ugly or not, by her standards or mine, it didn’t seem to matter to her once she got comfortable with my being there.”

Lt. Dan paused, and smiled to himself. “I mentioned how curious she is, right? Phaing is also dedicated and eager to improve herself, and even told me how much she appreciated my guidance… she did a good job of learning how to give my species a stimulating massage. Funny, all I did was lay there and enjoy it while giving her a few tips, and making the right noises, I suppose.” His smile broadened and Lt. Dan leaned forward, enjoying his memory of that part of the night. “She insisted that I should return the favor, just to be fair. I did my best, and there was nothing she didn’t want me to touch and work a little magic on…” His smile faded as he turned his head to look out the window. “… except her feet, she was only shy about that one area. Visually, she isn’t so appealing to me, Phaing was right about that. But holding her was different, the feel of her in my hands, with her responding in a perfectly natural way, that was pretty damned beautiful.”

The song came to an end, and the music did not resume. There was no other sound in the room at all, only Lt. Dan shifting uncomfortable in his padded leather seat, and the sound of his voice when he resumed his testimony.

“I would have gone through with it, could have closed my eyes and ignored the fact that she has no mottling or even any hair anywhere on her body but her head. In some ways she barely even seems female to me, but even so…” He downed the rest of the drink and set is aside, then shrugged extravagantly. “Bottom line; _not physically compatible_ , not even close. It wasn’t even a matter of chemistry, but more like basic geometry. We found that out during the massages, which was a heck of a lot better than finding out in another way, like if we had been in a hurry to… you know.” His words slowed as his enthusiasm faltered. For a moment, all he wanted to do was take a few drags on his cheroot.

An oddly detached female voice prompted Lt. Dan; “You said something about shared information.”

“We talked. You can’t talk about nothing with that woman, she just tunes out small talk. It has to be something real. So… for my part, I talked about what I know; engineering. Phaing doesn’t know anything technical about the subject, I think she could walk right through my work area and not even know she had been in the very place we are trying to keep her out of. However, she does know the most basic stuff.” Lt. Dan became more focused as he went on. “She was surprised to learn that we use up our Exotic Matter, and before you start in on me for letting that out, you have to admit it is pretty common knowledge here. However, _her_ people use it as a catalyst, to burn other stuff… like what they skim from Gas Giants. That is why she mistook water for fuel, and it also explains why their thrust is so good… its how that little Gunboat out-maneuvered us at P5k-881. The down-side for the Zhrau is that it limits the range of their ships when they are moving a light-speed or higher. They can’t go as fast or as far as we can… and, I think that their sparing use of Exotic Matter could tell us something about the limitations of their technology base.”

“I believe it will.” Lt. Dan was alone in the room, except for a lap-top on the table in front of him, showing Admiral Ozawa herself sitting at her desk at Fleet H.Q. The Admiral was also alone, with no aides hovering about as she kept notes on a data-pad with one hand and drummed the surface of her desk with the fingers of her other hand. “What else did you observe about her?”

Lt. Dan grimaced. There were other things that he would have preferred to forget, but the Admiral was too perceptive for him. “When I walked in, I saw that her desktop was tuned to police cases. Phaing was trying to pad her title as Marshal by learning about that sort of thing, and the case on display was a particularly distasteful one… you may be familiar with an elusive criminal enterprise known as the Kostigan Network? No?” Lt. Dan cursed under his breath, he would have preferred not to describe it. “There is a nasty little pack of criminals who are circulating some vicious stuff; snuff-porn involving exotic species, with some really hard-core evil even before they get to the torture and death.”

From the look on Ozawa’s face, he could tell he didn’t have to go any further into the details. “And her reaction to that?”

“She suggested a solution. Phaing wants us to start circulating rumors that this Kostigan fellow is thinking of quitting, and at the same time we should have an agent pretend to be an avid fan that wants to see Kostgan’s operation upgraded. That is just to buy time, time we would need to insert subliminal messages into the stuff that this criminal network is selling. A … a type of subliminal order for the viewers to commit suicide.”

“She did?” Ozawa scoffed at the idea. “She doesn’t know that its almost impossible to do anything like that in practice?”

“I mentioned that too, and Phaing already had the answers. She said that the implanted messages would have to be slanted towards triggering Sociopaths, to make it seem that killing themselves was actually in their own best interest, an easy way to evade the consequences of their actions. That, and she knew it would only be partly effective, and that was the point; Phaing wants a lot of Kostigan’s fans to survive, and find out about what happened to the others. _they_  would believe that Kostigan was eliminating them so that he could have a clean break, and enjoy his retirement without any complications.”

Ozawa was stunned. “Why" What would be the point of that?”

“The point is that any customers that knew anything about Kostigan would feel that they had to use it against him, for revenge or just to survive. They would either inform our Police, or go after Kostigan themselves. If they didn’t manage to kill him, there is our agent, the new fan with deep pockets and the ability to set Kostigan up in style.”

“That is… very clever.” Ozawa was impressed, and a little daunted. “I can see why that disturbed you.”

“What disturbed me was the _way_  she explained it, with such relish and… _if_ it is done, I think she would like to be involved. I also think it would be a bad idea to let her get her hands on Kostigan herself. What she would do to him…”

“Your ship has a psychopath aboard, is that what you are telling me?”

“No!” Lt. Dan sat at the edge of his seat and slapped the table. “You do not get to judge her like that!” He hesitated when Ozawa arched an eyebrow at him, but went ahead regardless. “There was one other thing that I saw, and I did not want to mention it to you, but if you want to get personal with your analysis you should know what you are getting into. I mentioned she was foot-shy, right? Well, Phaing does not know where all the mirrors are in her room yet, and I caught a glimpse. She has been branded.”

Ozawa was nobody’s fool, but she had been raised in a High Order civilization and had no idea what he meant by that. “Branded? What, a corporation is backing her somehow?”

“No, I mean a piece of metal was heated to a point where it would leave a permanent mark on living flesh by burning it.” Lt. Dan had the satisfaction of seeing Ozawa recoil from that information, and he pressed onwards. “It is on the sole of the right foot. If her physiology is anything like a human’s, that would be a particularly painful place for it, wouldn’t it?”

The Admiral shook off her squeamishness and asked; “What kind of symbol did it look like?”

“I couldn’t tell, I didn’t see it for long. It looked as if it had been pulled out of shape, a little broken up, as if her foot was a lot smaller than it is now when it was-“

“That will do!”

The Admiral held up a hand and looked away from her screen. Lt. Dan could see her pushing this last bit of information away. Hopefully, she was also discarding the notion that she could judge Phaing and file her away into some neat little category.

When Ozawa went on, Lt. Dan knew he had won; “Very well, you have held up your end of our agreement. I will over-ride your Uncle Nadzip’s objection to your application to Naval Intelligence. As soon as a slot comes open, be ready to transfer to an advanced training facility.”

“Thank you.”

“One more thing, Lieutenant. How exactly will you describe your evening with Phaing to the crew of your ship?”

“The exact words?” Lt. Dan sighed. A good agent always had to have a good cover story, but in his case there would be no story at all. “Okay, there is an archaic saying that goes like this; Have you ever heard  'a Gentleman never tells’?”

Ozawa nodded.

“Well, its _true_.”

Lt. Dan slapped the lap-top closed, breaking off the connection and the conversation in a way that few Lieutenants ever had the nerve to do when an Admiral was at the other end. It would be worth it, if it had prevented her from seeing the disgust that threatened to overwhelm him all of a sudden. He shouted at the room’s environmental control to get it to resume playing music, the voice-activation had become balky lately, and Dan reminded himself really had to get rid of these old Christmas decorations.  
He flopped back into the chair, head lolling to one side so that he could look out at space. Hoping it would settle his emotions and his stomach, he spoke to the darkness. “I’m sorry.”

Even as he said it, he did not know if he was speaking to the Admiral, to Phaing, or his own future self.

 

(the song that played for him at the end; <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiO_7LhPZFM>  )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I will kick back myself for a little while, and see what the comments have to say about what I have done so far.
> 
>  


	11. Interludes, the first one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Done
> 
> Cant go to Rich text when uploading and have to go back to re-edit a 2nd time, every time.
> 
> Anyway, this is a little stand-alone that is partly to end the mystery about why Phaing is so odd.  
> Partly.  
> It also leads to a hook-up, and I hate being a tease as much as Phaing does, so I will start a separate story thread to deal with that. The link to that thread will be posted tonight. 
> 
> Yeah, I prepared ahead of time. ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the views and the Kudos, they help keep me going.  
> But... why so shy about comments?  
> 

**Interludes;** the First One

 

 

Phaing had only been on the Orville a week when she nearly had a violent episode with some members of the crew.

 

“ _Stop_ her!”

Lt. Kitan was not expecting any trouble in the middle of the morning, she had been strolling along the halls in the crew quarters area simply to exercise her legs and to be seen by crew who rarely visited the bridge. It had been such a quiet day that she felt a mild surge of panic when Commander Greyson shouted that order from behind her.

Is she talking about _me_?

“She found out about the Moclans and what they do to females!” Greyson shouted, and Kitan pivoted on one heel to find Phaing storming down the hall with a good lead on Greyson. The Zhrau’s face was twisted with righteous fury and she was wearing that damnable belt that held her weapons.

… _good god_ , _is she ever ugly when she is angry_! was Kitan’s first thought. Her second thought made her lunge into Phaing’s path. The Zhrau woman had found out that the Moclans had basically engineered females out of their society, and virtually out of existence. Phaing looked as if she was going to kill them. She even had one hand on her sword.

Without saying a word or missing a step, Phaing feinted left and then dodged right, attempting to blow past Kitan without making any contact or even looking at her. … _oh, you think so?_ …

Kitan’s training had prepared her to deal with such elementary tactics. She lunged in and grabbed both of Phaing’s arms just above the elbows, putting just enough pressure on them to make Phaing’s hands go numb. The second that Kitan could see that the Zhrau had lost her grip on the un-drawn sword, she lifted Phaing off her feet and slammed her into the wall.

’Slammed’ was a relative term, it was a gentle move for a Xelayan, and still enough to knock the wind out of Phaing’s lungs and leave her lightly stunned until Greyson caught up.

“Thank you Lieutenant, hold her there until she calms down.”

Phaing was anything but calm. She struggled, feet kicking until Kitan threw her hips forward and pinned Phaing’s lower body as well. “Get your hands off… a-ooofff!… what the _HELL_?” She was puzzled and a little frighted by the Xelayan’s strength, and soon forgot what had made her so mad in the first place. “What are you, some kind of cyborg?”

Kitan had been uneasy about Phaing since the start, and deep down, she was a little frightened of her. Seeing Phaing so off-balance and confused made Kitan smile. Noses inches apart, she sneered; “You really were sleeping under that table, weren’t you? Missed out on the part where Xelayans live on a high-gravity world.”

“High?” Phaing bucked, flexing her spine and hips in a way that would have over-balanced anyone with a weaker hold than Kitan had. The Zhrau’s eyes were wide and half-wild as she looked at her pinned arms and at Kitan’s uncompromising face. “ _How_ high?”

“Just relax! Stop fighting me, you will _not_  win and I can keep you like this all day without breaking a sweat. Now get a grip, I think the Commander would like a word with… you... ' _the hell_?”

All of a sudden, there seemed to be something wrong with Phaing. Kitan had also been schooled in ways to deal with people to went into seizures or similar medical conditions when restrained, and the lessons had made her wish desperately that she never had to deal with that kind of situation. For a handful of heartbeats, she froze as Phaing’s eyeballs rolled back and her slurred words came bubbling out; “No… you don’t know… wh-what you are … doing to mm-me!”

The little Zhrau’s body was moving in a strangely suggestive way now, and what broke Kitan’s freeze was Phaing’s lower leg. It came up at a seemingly impossible angle , her calf-muscles stroking Kitan’s ass with just the right pressure to make it feel like real passion.

Kitan was repulsed, aroused, and shocked by her own arousal. She let go of Phaing’s arms as if they were charged electric cables and took a step back.

Greyson shouted again; “Don’t let her go! Its a …. _trick..._?”

Her eyes were still askew, but that didn’t slow Phaing down. She followed Kitan's retreat and wrapped her in a lusty hug as she kissed the Xelayan full on the mouth.

Kitan could have fought her off, but she had to calculate how much strength she could use without doing permanent damage to this lightly-built woman. Once the kiss started, her head was no longer capable of complex thought. It was so warm, and even if it was being pressed upon her, Kitan instinctively understood it’s meaning. Phaing’s lips were inviting her, or even begging, to submit to her. A yawning pit of need was right in front of her, and Kitan felt herself falling into it…

A heartbeat later, Phaing’s eyes flashed open just as Kitan’s were starting to flutter, and the Zhrau broke the kiss and fell back with a stricken look on her face. “Oh shit oh gods oh NO!” Greyson started to say something, but Phaing continued,  horrified. “I didn’t mean… I _forced_ … I am SO sorry!” She backed away, intending to flee. Phaing hesitated, she was so rattled that she did not know which way her own room was from here.

So, the mighty Phaing was the one in retreat now? Kitan had no intention of letting her escape from whatever this was, and that hesitation was all the time she needed to pounce.

“Oh no you don’t!” One leap that would have been awkward for anyone else was all she needed to place herself in front of Phaing once again. “You owe me, as you are so fond of saying, and I am collecting right now!”

“You, what?”

“There are a couple of Xelayan scholars that have been hounding me day and night for an interview with you. So unless you want to explain yourself to the Captain, your time is now _my_  time until I say otherwise. Consider yourself in my custody.” Kitan glanced at Greyson, who nodded to give her permission. “I have a day of downtime coming, let’s call it today.” She then grabbed the buckle of Phaing’s belt. “This is mine now… how do you get this…? Nevermind!” The buckle was too difficult and Kitan was in no mood to wait around.

She had frozen, again! Kitan knew nobody else had noticed, but that did nothing to improve her disposition or make her any more generous with her social graces. She gave up on the buckle and grabbed Phaing’s shoulders, half-spinning the confounded Zhrau around to face her the other way. Kitan then grabbed the back of the belt and hoisted Phaing up and over her shoulder.

Phaing found herself hanging upside down over Kitan’s back, with her butt up at Kitan’s shoulder-level and her head down with an inverted view of what was behind Kitan as she jogged towards her own room. Phaing had a brief view of Greyson, who was standing there with narrow eyes and her mouth open. Phaing shrugged and put one arm over her head, as if she was afraid that she might be dropped on it at any moment. With the other arm, she waved off Greyson’s concerns and silently accepted her fate, whatever that might be.

Greyson watched them go, Kitan using her free hand to key something into her portable comms unit, and Phaing folding her legs and arms tightly to her to make as small a package of herself as she could.

Whatever was about to happen, Greyson suspected that both women would have a very different attitude towards each other by tomorrow.

 

Phaing bounced as she was flung down on the sofa in Kitan’s private quarters. When Phaing leapt back to her feet, she saw that Kitan had managed to work the sword and scabbard free and was putting it on a high shelf. “Now the belt.” Phaing sighed, and gave up the belt as well.

Kitan snapped her fingers and crooked a finger at Phaing. “The jacket, too. Or rather, the garrote and the razor-knife you have stashed away in there, and whatever electronics are in there as well. And that reminds me, why aren’t you using the sleeve anymore? Why did you need one of our data-pads?”

A testy note crept into Phaing’s voice as she shucked the jacket and threw it at Kitan. “Your laundry-machine nuked it, thank you very much. You want my boots too?”

“No, but the mini-grenades in the heels will be the next thing I take if… _what the_ …” In spite of everything, Kitan nearly burst out laughing. “Why are you wearing THAT?”

Instead of the white sleeveless shirt with the onyx pin, Phaing was wearing the rawhide halter-top that Malloy and Lamar had pranked her with. She shrugged helplessly. “I like it. Something wrong with that?”

“No, in fact, it’s perfect.” Kitan glanced at the big view screen at the end of the room. It was still blank, but it would not stay that way for long. “But, the fit is so sloppy, it doesn’t even look like it belongs to you. Stay still a moment.”

“Well, okay.” Phaing faced the screen, still oddly submissive, with Kitan behind her and she tore away the ragged ends and untied the back so that she could tighten it up a bit.

“If you were wearing this on your way to see the Moclans, I’d like to know why. In fact, you should explain that whole thing to me.”

“It wasn’t something I was planning, but I did make an offer to them. There is a lot of tension between those two, I heard a rumor that Bortus may be alone here soon, that his mate is…” Phaing caught a bit of flying fur, and protested. “Hey! That was one of the nicer parts, what are you doing back there?”

“I’ll replicate you a fur coat if you want, but first this thing has to look like it’s all supposed to be one piece. Those scholars will be on any minute. Now, what about Bortus?”

“I thought I could help, take the tension out, make them more relaxed with each other.”

“How, by sleeping with them both?” Kitan did not expect a serious answer to that, but she got one anyway.

“If that is what it took, why the hell not? I’d end up bruised and battered… ooof! … seems like I will anyway, but that was just one option. Those Moclan are tough guys, the real deal, I thought that we could get along very well together, and with Zhrau in general. But…”

“But you looked into them, and found out about why they are all male. Did you also look up the trial? The one _we_  were all at?”

“Yes.” Phaing slumped a bit, and shook her head. “My vision was getting a little red by that point, but yeah… you tried to stop it.”

“And so did Bortus!” Kitan gave Phaing a slightly unnecessary shake to emphasize her words.

“He.. _urf_.. did?”

“Yes, so all you could have done is make things worse for them. What is it with you, anyway? And you didn’t put up much of a fight with me, don’t you have any hand-to-hand fighting skills?”

Phaing blew a sarcastic sigh and tried to turn around. Kitan jerked her back into position by the draw-strings of her bikini-top. “You mean, unarmed? Hah! Look at me, Lieutenant, fight with what? Unarmed, I can either run or hope for the best terms I can get.”

Kitan finished tying all the ends up and let go of Phaing. “You could always kick them in the nuts.”

“WHAT?” Phaing turned and looked at Kitan, instead of any of the mirrors. She looked as if she had been told to trash a church. “I’d never… that’s disgusting.” She grinned, one of her lop-sided and familiar grins full of cheery malice. “And too small a target. I go for kneecaps. Much easier to hit, and it can even be permanent if you do it right.”

Kitan was glad for whatever was holding Phaing back from doing that to her a few minutes ago in the corridor. She pointed to the mirror for Phaing to take a look.

“Oh! Okay, I see what you were trying to do there.” Phaing had to admit that the fur top looked more presentable now, and cleaner. It was also less comfortable and more revealing, two qualities that went hand in hand all too often. “The boys will be more eager to talk to me if I wear this outside.”

“Like that’s a problem?” Phaing tilted her head as if she didn’t know what Kitan was talking about, and that pushed the wrong button. “Oh come on! Don’t even … you _know_ you have been the hottest hottie on this ship from the moment you stepped on board!” It was impossible for Kitan to make it sound friendly, she was truly exasperated with Phaing when it came to that subject.

“You must be crazy.” Phaing was not pretending, not at all. “YOU are the one all the guys are looking at. Yeah, _you_. Hell , no android ever propositioned me! There is something cosmic about you, hon.”

A third voice in the room became audible, beginning by clearing his throat. “If you tell me that now is a bad time, I won’t have any trouble believing you.”

“Father!”

 

. . . _ _ _ . . .

 

 

“Doctor, unless you are busy with something your Nurses cannot possibly handle, I need to see you in my office immediately.”

Finn barely looked up from her data pad as that voice echoed over the comms. “That sounded like Mercer, but I don’t know if I ever heard him sound so much like a Captain.”

“One having a bad day, you mean.” Nurse Felicity nodded to her over the very bored looking patient on the table. “I got this, better not keep him waiting.”

“I suppose not. The only question is, which one of the boys we will have to deal with today.” Doc Finn was doing her best to sound nonchalant and deflect the nurses gossip towards either her own boys or the antics of Lamar & Malloy, but in her heart she knew what her summons must be about.

Her suspicion was proven the moment she walked into the office. Mercer was waiting there seated behind his desk with Greyson standing at his left shoulder. Both of them looked less like shipmates that Finn could call by their first names, and more like Fleet officers who meant serious business.

The Captain greeted Finn with a simple “Doctor” and a nod to the seat in front of the desk, and then started right in. “I understand that you received the medical information that you requested from Erriau* two days ago, and that you completed your examination of Phaing shortly after that. Is there anything you would like to report to me, _anything_ at _all_?”

“Phaing has asserted doctor-patient privilege.” Finn said cooly, more relaxed outwardly than she could feel inwardly.

Mercer brought his fist down on the desktop. “I don’t care!” Greyson put her hand on the back of his chair, and Mercer took a moment to calm himself before going on. “You know, I felt good about removing her from that situation she was in… whatever that was. I felt a little like I was rescuing a kitten, but that kitten has cyanide-tipped claws. Doctor, I need to know something and it is important that you do your duty and be honest with me; did I bring a psychopath into my ship?”

 

 

. . . - - - . . .

 

 

 

“Your _parents_ are the scholars?” Phaing put her hand over her mouth, an unsuccessful effort to hide her laughter.

“Yes, and unless my daughter has called to tell us about her new girlfriend, I must assume that you are the Zhrau she has been telling us about.”

Phaing turned her head and flipped her hair away from her ear, and then wiggled it at him. “What, the eyes didn’t give me away?”

“An epicanthic fold is fairly common, although rarely as pronounced as yours. My name is-“

“I know very well who you are, ah, and this must be your wife?” Alara’s mother came on screen, looking a little bleary-eyed and fastening her robe. “I am called Marshal Phaing on this ship, and it is my honor to meet you.” Phaing’s heels came together with a thump and she bowed towards the screen. There was no mockery in her gesture, Zhrau took family very seriously. “How may I be of service to you?”

“Oh no, I forgot that we are still on Nyalan time!” Kitan was mortified, and flopped into the sofa without realizing what she was doing. “Its the middle of the night there, isn’t it?”

Her mother waved that comment off, never taking her eyes off Phaing as she straightened up and seated herself on the arm of the sofa. “Phaing? We are the ones that are honored, the Zhrau delegation has not arrived here yet and we have been dying to find out something about your people. We have so much to ask you, will you allow us to make some observations as we go along? We tend to think out loud, it is part the reason why we are together.” She tilted her head towards her husband with an enigmatic grin. “Its not like anyone else could handle our habit of speaking plainly.”

Kitan cringed, this was already going the wrong way, from her point of view.

Phaing, however, was smiling back at them. “Then I shall speak the same way. If Isaac was here we’d be enjoying a quartet of perfect honesty.”

“I doubt that, if he has been propositioning my daughter-“

“What!?”

“Dad! No, Mom, it isn’t like that!” Kitan was back on her feet, making chopping motions with her hands. "It was just … banter over the dinner table.”

“Mealtimes here can be somewhat… dramatic.” Phaing winked at Kitan and pulled the attention back to herself by gesturing at what she was wearing. “A gift, from some pranksters. As far as the usual ‘welcome aboard’ games go, this ship has been awfully decent and easy-going with me.” She sighed and looked to Alara. “I wish I could say the same about myself.”

“So, this isn’t your normal attire?”

Alara grabbed Phaing’s jacket and tossed it to her, then sat back down. Phaing was exactly where she wanted all the attention to be focused, but the attire that Alara had foolishly reduced her to was bouncing the focus back to the Orville and it’s crew. “We were making some adjustments, that thing made you look like an orphan.”

“I _am_ an orphan.” Phaing said in a casually pointed way as she shrugged the jacket back on without bothering with the buttons. “But we are not here to talk about me.” She also took a seat, at the opposite end of the sofa from Alara and asked; “Where shall we begin?”

“Your Government, is it a monarchy?”

“No, it used to be, we have had many transitions in the last thousand years, but the Royals have been kept around as a sort of fail-safe. If a ruling body has to be replaced, we don’t have a revolution or anything like that, the Monarchs simply say ‘We disapprove’ and a whole new government is formed. Its the only real power they have. We keep them pampered so that they don’t get too ambitious, and if one of them wants to have a real career they have to renounce their privileges and can go into the Military or the Diplomatic corps. In the first one, their connection would count for nothing, and in the second they would have to be damned careful to avoid using them up.”

“Interesting. So this Duke Argaelion-“ Proff. Kitan saw Phaing and Alara exchange looks, and Phaing smiled just a little. “- you know him?”

“We’ve met.” Alara answered Phaing’s smile with one of her own.

“He’s one of the good ones.” Phaing assured them all. “And you have his name right. The Duke does not use an alias, ever. He wants everyone he comes in contact with to feel comfortable in his presence, so he is open with his friend and family names… he was the only one among us at Ras Mentis that did not use his alias.”

“How do Zhrau names work?”

Alara already knew the answer to the question her mother asked, and she also knew how long and slowly this interview was likely to be. She rose again and asked Phaing if she would like some tea before retreating to the cubby where her replication unit was.

While she was there, she could also make a quick call to the captain, and make sure that her rather peremptory demand for time off was acceptable to him.

 

. . . _ _ _ . . .

 

 

The Captain had Doctor Finn’s back to the wall, and she knew it. Mercer didn’t just play fast and lose with the rules, he barely knew what the rules WERE. But in this case, he had them on his side and he knew it, so did Greyson. Once the Commander explained what had nearly happened that morning, and how the Zhrau could be seen as a threat to the lives and sanity of the crew.

That took priority over a patient’s right to privacy.

“The answer to your question is yes… and no.”

“No good enough. Not to keep her here, but it is enough to send her packing.”

“No!” The Doctor’s cool reserve was gone. “You can’t do that. She his here for the same reason the Zhrau made contact with us… she wants to become a better person.” Greyson took a deep breath, and let it out slowly while Mercer pondered that. “Yes, I know, it is a pretty tall order, but remember that I am a psychiatrist and in my opinion we have to keep her here.” Ed Mercer looked blank for just a heartbeat. “You forgot that, didn’t you?”

“Well, the way your kids behave…” he raised both his hands before Dr. Finn could pounce on him for that. “Peace. What I need is specific information. Your judgement is one thing, but it is my responsibility to _know_  for a _fact_  that this woman, who as charging down the corridor to attack a pair of Moclans this morning, is worth the risk. I am ordering you to tell me what is wrong with her.”

“Very well, but if you are going to trample all over my professional ethics then you will hear me out to the end.” The Doctor shifted her gaze to Greyson. “You've had her back since day one, and that means your instincts are better than anyone on this ship, including mine.” Finn took a moment to compose herself, putting her data pad on the table as she brought up Phaing’s file. “Her bloodline is not entirely Zhrau, something from a species we have not seen yet, and there are also markers that look like Human DNA, However, that is not why she is only 1.5 meters tall. Phaing is 30 centimeters shorter than the average Zhrau due to chronic malnutrition during her childhood.”

A crude thought passed through Mercer’s head; _‘Well, at least she filled out, somewhat_ ’. He tried to push that thought aside, but as he did the significance of that dawned on him. “That must have been during her pre-pubescent years.”

“Yes, very good.” Not knowing how his thoughts lead Mercer there, Finn was mildly impressed. “There is also some scarring on her right foot.” Finn showed them a two-color image of Phaing’s foot. “This is the key to understanding her past, and her pathology. Those are burns that I simplified so that you can see them more clearly.”

It didn’t look like anything to Mercer, and Greyson was just as puzzled. “She stepped on something hot?”

“No, that was _done_ to her, it is a brand. Ages ago, livestock was branded that way to identify them, and in the darkest of times, so were slaves.”

Mercer’s mind shied away, one last time, from the clues before his eyes. “But, that doesn’t look like anything! If it was to identify… property, then-“

“I am going to use a specialized program to shrink that foot back down to what it would have looked like when she was the equivalent of eight years old, in human terms.” The foot on the screen gradually became smaller, and the scar-tissue resolved itself into a sideways figure-eight. It was a symbol for forever, and it was still in common use… among Humanity.

Greyson fell back against the nearby wall, eyes gone huge and both hands over her mouth. The signs had been there, how had she missed them? The careful and sparing way Phaing handled her food, her gratitude for the smallest kindnesses, and her unbalanced approach to social situations… and that weird way she had of bringing out people’s protective instincts.

Mercer slumped in his chair, eyes going anywhere but that image. His thoughts were in even greater turmoil than Greyson’s own. He had glimpsed Phaing’s darkness on Ras Mentis, and now all his most base fears were being justified. “Is she looking for revenge?”

“No!” The Doctor was on her feet, leaning on Mercer’s own desk and looking as serious as he had ever seen her. “She begged me not to tell you, any of this. But most especially that is was a human that destroyed her childhood, and forced her to learn to make her body do things that cannot be taught to adult women.”

“Then she _is_  looking for revenge!” It was the only thing that Mercer could think to say, but even has he said it he knew he was wrong. If Phaing had wanted to, she could have let Orville and all aboard drop into that Gas Giant at P5k-881. “But… don’t most children who were abused so savagely also become savages themselves?”

“She is a wild one, no doubts about it.” Finn straightened up and fidgeted with her data pad before putting it away. “However, in her case, she has not imitated her oppressor. Phaing is the opposite, she has become a crusader, fighting against that sort of thing and holding all ‘evil’ in a kind of contempt. She is struggling to be a good person, as I have already told you. The problem is, the only example Phaing has had to follow has been her fellow Zhrau… until now.”

Greyson was still processing all of this, there were things far outside her comprehension zone at work here. “She begged you not to tell us? But, why? She could have used that as leverage to make us-“

Finn laughed, loudly, and sat back down. “That is the part that convinced me that we need to believe in her. You want to know what she said to me, exactly?”

 

. . . _ _ _ . . .

 

 

“Because Humans are pathological! They take too many burdens on themselves, the poor, blessed, soulful things are always driving themselves mad apologizing for things that weren’t even their fault in the first damned place! They are burning themselves out, and unless they get some serious help from the rest of us the whole thing could go to pieces! The shoulder they responsibility for this Union of theirs and everyone else is oh-so eager to ride their coat-tails to the very first era in known history that all of US are not looking over our shoulders in fear of the next wave of invaders.” Phaing leapt from her seat and paced around in front of the screen, her passion in full bloom. “They need us as much as we need them to make this work, if not more so. How can you not see that?”

Alara’s father cleared his throat thoughtfully. “That is certainly an interesting perspective you have. I thought your people were enamored of warfare?”

“Sure we are, without war any society will sink into a swamp of navel-gazing and decadence. However, there is a difference between that and a constant, grinding attrition that leaves whole worlds and civilizations a hollowed-out husk. THAT was the mistake the Masters made, and you’d damn well better be glad we got rid of them before the Union came along!”

“Oh, so no hard feelings about the Xelayan people missing out on the occupation, is that right?”

Her father’s snarky side was getting the better of him, and before Phaing could retaliate Alara held out a fresh cup and asked “Tea?” It had become her code, asking Phaing to cool off for a moment.

“Yeah, thanks, just a sec.” Phaing rolled her shoulders, looking uncomfortable. She had done that several times in the last hour, and now Alrara could see why. “Too _tight_!” Phaing reached into her collar with one hand and up behind her jacket with the other, untying the rawhide strips Alara had tied up. She had never buttoned the jacket up, and when it was loose Phaing just yanked the Bikini top off and threw it aside. Then she crouched on the sofa and accepted the tea as if she didn’t know that she was dangerously close to exposing herself indecently.

Alara’s mother, naturally, commented on this with a blandly neutral tone. “Is propriety something all Zhrau hold in low regard, or just you?”

Phaing threw her first overtly hostile look at the screen since the interview had started. She set the tea back down, glanced down at herself as if just noticing that the valley between her breasts was on display.  
‘ _as if?_ ’ Alara thought to herself, ‘ _the little idiot probably never even gave it a thought in the first place_!’

Phaing leaned back in the middle of the sofa with her arms out, jacket opening until her nipples were nearly visible. “It’s a lifestyle choice.”

The focus abruptly shifted to Alara. “When are you coming home?”

“Oh no, not this again!” Now it was Alara who was ready to jump up and start pacing around. “I have had enough of Schoolwork and I am not giving up my career!”

“Alara, please.” Her father was more conciliatory than Alara had heard him being for a long time. “It isn’t about that. Well, not entirely. But you know you _have_  to, its time. In order to maintain your health and strength, you have to come back here for at least half a year. If you stay out there, you might never be able to come back to us.”

At the moment, never going back did not seem like a bad idea at all. “I know, but…”

“Want me to come with you?” Phaing asked, also sounding more gentle than she had a moment before. “Still owing you some, an’ seems like having someone to watch your back would be good.”

“What?” Alara looked to make certain Phaing meant what she was saying. “No, don’t you remember? Its a high gravity world! You’d be bent out of shape before you knew it.”

Phaing huffed sarcastically. “I’ll wear a bra, if that’s what you’r worried about.”

Alara was deathly afraid she might start giggling in front of her parents. Her mother was not amused in the slightest way; “I have to agree with your Father, dear. Your career path has taken you too far from polite company, and it isn’t doing anything for your status among your own people.”

“Why you…. and people think that _I’m_ the one that is socially retarded here?” Phaing succeeded at doing something that Alara had been unable to do for years; she made her father mad. The way his face went pale and his ears colored was all that gave it away. Alara cast an alarmed look at her mother and raised a hand to stop Phaing, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She was hoping that Phaing was just getting warmed up, and she was right.

Phaing didn’t even slow down; “I know I ain’t supposed to say so, but you are really pissin’ me off. This is your daughter, and you belittle her life like _that_? A couple of hours ago I went into a rage and I was on my way to chastise a couple of crewmen on this ship. Lt. Kitan here subdued me more efficiently than I could have imagined.”

“That does not sound terribly difficult.” Professor Kitan scoffed. The wolfish grin Phaing flashed him told them all he’d made a mistake before he could say more.

“My service file will tell you that I have killed seventy two opponents in the last ten years. Armed opponents, and it is not a complete list. _Armed,_ like I was this morning, and _she_  was _not_.” Phaing’s finger was as straight as a gun barrel as she pointed in turn to Alara, her parents, and then Phaing herself as she said; “People like HER, make YOU people, seem more acceptable to MY people.” She sat back with her arms were folded over her chest, and nobody mistook it for a gesture of modesty. “If yer’ keeping’ up with current events, y’all might wanna ponder the value of that, _eh_?”

Alara was torn. Part of her wanted to hug Phaing like a sister, but another part was ringing with the number 72. What could that mean…?

“Yes, well, you have given us much to consider.” It was interesting to see her parents flustered, and the genuine concern that the both of them were finally feeling for her. Not for Alara’s academic career, but for her well-being. _Better late than never_. Her Mother was clinging to her professional side when she said; “Would you mind if we call you back in about ten or twelve hours?”

Phaing said nothing and did not move a muscle. Alara had to say “Yes, fine, unless you get a message from me first.” She broke the connection before another word could be said, by anyone.

As soon as the screen went dark , Alara moved towards Phaing, only to butt heads with her as Phaing did the same thing at the same time. It was a very minor bump to Alara, but Phaing’s eyes fluttered and she slid bonelessly off the sofa. “Oh shoot!” Alara made a grab for her, and got nothing but the jacket that Phaing was sliding out of on her way down.

Alara leapt up and flipped the couch out of the way and tossing the jacket too, so that she could reach for Phaing with both hands. The little Zhrau had not passed out, she was only stunned and opened one eye as Alara carefully rolled her onto her back and crouched over her to peer are her face, and forehead. “Don’t move! Oh please be alright, it was an accident! I’ll get the Doctor.”

“No… got implants, regeneration … just let me lay still a while.” Phaing shrugged at the Xelayan. “I’m fine, people have been beating the crap out of me since I was a kid.” When Alara gasped and sat up, Phaing tried to reassure her. “Aw hell, honey, if you think I am bad now, then try and imagine what a little snot I was as a teenager.”

Alara had to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. It was a lame joke, but the release of tension was enough to make her feel much better. “Okay, lay still then. It might not be so good for a nurse to come in with you laying there topless.”

“Like I got anything they ain’t seen?” Phaing’s voice faded as her eyes closed, laying perfectly relaxed on the floor. Alara had to glance at the screen to make certain that her parents had not re-opened the link, that would have been so typical.

Orville’s Security Chief then grabbed her personal comm unit and discovered that the Captain had sent her a text-only message; ++ **Yes! Take the day, and tonight too. Keep Phaing in your custody as long as you can. Warn us if she gets loose. I would consider it a personal favor if we did not have to see or deal with her in any way until tomorrow morning** ++

Curious, his use of “I” and “we” in the same sentence made her wonder what was going on. It did not sound so good for Phaing. She looked absurdly young, laying there with her hair in a messy hair and her face so relaxed. The message had a pleading quality to it, but if that was what he/they wanted, then so be it.

Alara tapped the “acknowledged” key twice. Once to show the message had been received, and the second time to show that the situation was in hand. She then put all privacy settings at maximum, only the Captain or the Doctor could access her door or her comms now, even to send an alarm. Alara wandered across the room and sat on a windowsill and thought things through for a while. It gave her a chance to sort her own feelings and thoughts out, and time to wonder about things like opportunity and favors owed. While Alara thought about it, she saw a bruise on Phaing's forehead fade away before it was fully formed. _Implants_ , she has said, her body could heal all on it's own. How interesting...

When she had made up her mind, Alara went to Phaing and unlaced her boots, careful not to jostle her during in the process. Once she had those off she swiftly rolled Phaing’s pants and underwear off, and before the Zhrau knew what was happening, Alara was stretched out on top of her, face to face and still fully dressed. The Xelayan had her weight balanced on the toes of her boots and her elbows, and so it was a major surprise for Phaing to find herself covered by Alara when she opened her eyes. It was wickedly thrilling to have the fierce Zhrau at her mercy, and the questioning little whine Phaing made at the back of her throat made it all that much better. Feeling a rush of power, freedom and arousal unlike anything she had felt so far in her life, Alara rocked on her toes and elbows, letting Phaing know that while the Xelayan was still in full uniform, the Zhrau was as bare as the day she was born.

“Now, keeping in mind that you really suck at lying, I want you to tell me a few things. First, you could not control yourself when you kissed me today, could you?”

Eyes wide, Phaing shook her head.

“Would you like to try that again? Not by force, and not by accident, but because you want to?”

Phaing nodded, the tip of her nose brushing Alara’s ridged nose, and she started to raise her head to do so.

Alara pulled back just enough to make Phaing hesitate. “One last thing. You know I am Alara, right? Okay then, what is your name?”

“Sushulana” was the whispered reply. I twas not so hard as Kelly Greyson thought it would be, once it was brocken down by syllables; Sue-shoe-lana. “And… Alara? I had no idea you… oh wow.”

“Sushulana, cousin, I have no idea, either. But I am going to find out.”

 

(continues; <http://archiveofourown.org/works/13711260/chapters/31497363> )

. . . _ _ _ . . .

 

 

The Doctor was long gone when Ed Mercer and Kelly Greyson sat on the edge of the Captain’s desk to munch on a specially prepared brownie and ponder what they had found out. It was a very unconventional lunch, and it would barely be sufficient to take the edge off of their tension. If things went as usual, they would not be given long to think about things. Things like implants that allowed a Zhrau to regenerate on her own, and more completely than any Union technology. _Slowly_ , however, too slowly to be of much value to a warrior in combat. But to maintain the usefulness of a pleasure slave that was being subjected to crushing abuse and torment, over and over again…

“I used to wonder what made her so strange. Now I can’t imagine how she could be so close to what we’d consider normal. Those children she was trying to rescue when we first crossed paths, it was personal for her.”

“Ed, thank you for trying to make Alara keep Phaing out of our sight for a while.” They both needed as much time as they could to work this out. Hopefully, they would be able to control their faces the next time they saw Phaing. If she found out that they knew what they had learned, and how… “But she should not be our focus now, we have something bigger to worry about.”

Ed Mercer nodded, wishing it wasn’t too early to order up some whiskey to wash the brownie down with. “I know.” He looked down at the floor, brows furrowed. “God! _She_ is the one that is actually trying to protect _us_! I can’t imagine that she knows… that…”

Kelly was ready to put their suspicions into words; “That the Zhrau deliberately sent us an exchange officer that would give is a completely misleading example of who and what they really are?”

“Yes. _That_.” Anger and fear were rising in him, “Why they would do something like that … and what if we are wrong?”

“Why don’t we ask them?” Mercer barked out a humorless laugh, and Greyson continued; “I don’t mean directly, but we should talk to one that isn’t spending all her time on our ship, don’t you think? Lets not assume anything about the rest of the Zhrau until we know for sure.

 

A few minutes later they had Admiral Zurnoctis on screen. “Just the man I wanted to speak to. And hello to you too, Commander Greyson. How are things going at your end?”

“Very well, thank you.” Mercer could not hide a mild amount of surprise. “You wanted to speak to us, about what? Phaing?”

“No no, her reports are coming through and they indicate that your treatment of her is exemplary. We thank you for that, although she may be upset that she is about to miss some action. We are planning a raid against the Krill, and I have a few questions for you.”

“A raid? But, you haven’t even crossed Union space yet. and I thought that you were only going to help guard against attacks.” Mercer leaned on his desk with one elbow and turned to one side a little, allowing Greyson to lean in for a better look at the small screen.

The Zhrau admiral was standing at an interactive map of Union and Krill space, wearing a less formal version of the same uniform she had been wearing on Ras Mentis. “Yes, this is just in the planning stage as yet, but our analysis reveals that the Krill have been more methodical than you were lead to believe. It will probably be necessary to throw them off balance for a while. Now, you were on one of their ships, did it appear that the missile they used to attack your colony was built in that ship while in transit, or was it on board since launch?”

“A little of both, they seemed to be putting the finishing touches on it while we were there.” And so it went, a series of technical questions that took only five minutes to resolve to the Admiral’s satisfaction. Since Zurnoctis did not ask, Mercer felt compelled to add; “Admiral, are you aware that the Krill ship I was on had a number of children aboard? we suspect that this is the case with many other Krill ships.”

Zurnoctis barely looked up from her data pad as she shrugged and cooly responded with just one word; “Bonus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode song -  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvZGyusjlAM
> 
>  
> 
> (see "Phaing's Intimate interludes" for how things went for Alara)


	12. Violence is Golden, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning a new and more action-oriented phase of this story

4 — Violence is Golden, Part One

 

 

 

Weeks passed with Phaing keeping to the background, watching and learning and quietly finding her place in the Orville. She was happy to be included in the majority of the meetings taking place and had little to say about missing out on a couple of Away Team missions. The only visible disappointments were slight, and included something that had nothing to do with the Orville. A replacement Jacket had arrived with intact electronics from the Zhrau homeward of Erriau, and Phaing grimaced when she saw the color.

“White. I’ve been transferred to the Explorer Corps.”

Alara Kitan was the first to see her wearing it. “What’s the problem? That’s what we are here, and white is definitely your color.”

“I know, and thanks for sayin’, hon.” Phaing, who Kitan and Greyson had taken to calling Sushulana in private, sighed and tried to explain; “In Human terms, its kinda like being transferred from the Marine Corps to the Coast Guard.”

Alara knew Phaing too well to think she was being insulting. “Don’t stress, we’re bound to see some action soon.”

 

 

Captain Mercer was getting his briefing for the next mission from Admiral Halsey in his office instead of the briefing room, and he was alone. This always meant that he would have to be very careful about what he shared with his crew.

Halsey was also being careful with how he worded his briefing; “We call it Argon. This is another hands-off sort of world that we have only allowed a few specially trained personnel to visit. What makes it unusual is the population.Nobody knows why, but there are samples of almost every known sentient species in this arm of the Galaxy present there.”

“Sounds like a Zoo I was once placed in.”

“This is different. The people roam about freely, and their whole society is in flux as they try to sort things out among themselves. But… it may not be _entirely_ different. The world is at a pre-Renaissance level of technology and social development, and it appears to be an enforced one.”

Mercer’s attention sharpened. “ _Enforced_? How so?”

“We don’t know. What we do know is that advanced technological equipment vanishes after 33 minutes, and we have not been able to locate any of it. We have also sent in several teams, and the last one has disappeared.”

“Whoa!” Mercer could not believe where this was going. “I’m sorry sir, but we have one of the worst records when it comes to non-interfearance clauses. Aren’t there some Krill making trouble, or-“

“Ed.” Halsey stopped Mercer cold with just one firm word before he could get rolling with the excuses. “This is a _rescue_ mission, and you  & your crew are not too shabby when it comes to those. But what it comes down to is this; the Zhrau have expressed an interest in this world, and you are the only one in the area with a Zhrau liaison officer aboard.”

“I see.” So, Phaing had become an issue, and not much more than a month after she had come aboard. “Why are they interested? We are a long way from Zhrau space.”

“They were not clear about why, but I have my suspicions. That is why I am talking to you in private. Have you ever heard of Lynk Gates, Astral Lanes, or Overworld Passages?”

Mercer thought a moment, and arched an eyebrow at the Admiral. “What? That stuff is… real? Artificially generated Worm-Holes that go from planet to planet without making them collapse into it, right? I thought that was total fantasy territory.”

“It almost certainly is. But you asked me why the Zhrau would show any interest in this and that is my best guess. We are working overtime to learn all we can about the Zhrau, playing catch-up, and that is something that they have been known to have an interest in. We do need a much more complete picture of those people.”

“I know, admiral, and I am sorry if we have not been able to get as much out of Phaing as you would like, but she is a very non-typical Zhrau.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Halsey assured him. “You have supplied us with more data on the Zhrau than any other three sources we have, combined.”

“What… have you been reading her dispatches?” Halsey shook his head, and Mercer continued; “Didn’t you read my report about how she differs from other Zhrau?”

Halsey nodded. “And your theory is confirmed by the Xelayan academy, they came to the same conclusion you did, and on the very same day.. What really sets your Phaing apart is how forthcoming she is, and I know she must be a beast to work with sometimes, but I want you to do whatever you can to build a relationship there.”

 

 

The last of Bortus’s army of Trolls was the toughest to put down. John Lamar had to keep the towering brute busy with some fancy Kanata work while Gordon Malloy came around the flank to slay the beast with a mighty overhand blow from his Halberd. With a bellow and an extravagant spray of blood from his split-open back, the Troll fell to the ground.

“Watch out!” Phaing’s shouted warning almost came too late.

A big sickly-orange hand shot out and caught John by the leg. The Troll flipped him to the ground before he could cut that hand off. Gordon was able to save the day by finishing off the Troll, dashing around and burying his Halberd in the monster’s head.

John got up, nursing his sore leg. “I think I liked it better when the bad guys just de-rezzed when you landed a good hit on them.”

“Oh no way!” Gordon left his Halberd in the Troll and came up to give John a hand. “Did you see that? I think he _bounced_ when he hit the ground!”

The sound of clapping came to their ears, the slow and sarcastic kind.

“Are we done yet?” Phaing sat on the sidelines, where she had been since Bortus had slain her. It had been the second time she had been “killed” in the last hour.

John and Gordon exchanged disappointed glances. They had set this up for her, to see if she really knew her stuff. Now that an away mission had come up where her skill with a sword, and her murky reputation as a killer, would be very helpful. However, the closer they came to Argon the colder the Captain’s feet were becoming. Mercer was having second thoughts about risking his Zhrau Liaison officer in a dangerous place, and so his Pilot had set up this simulated battle for Phaing to show her stuff.

She had done so badly that it was almost funny.

Phaing complained that it wasn’t ‘real’ enough for her, she complained about the Samurai armor they all had to wear, and she disliked the unfamiliar Katana she had to us. She has been killed by an Orc at the start, so they did a  re-set to give her another chance. Bortus had fought her, and knocked her to the ground several times before her body gave out on her. While she she lay on the ground, Bortus had been felled by a throw ax and fell on her. The Computer ruled them both dead. Phaing crawled to the sidelines and Bortus had stormed out of the room in a huff.

“At least she stayed to cheer us on.” Gordon shrugged.

“Not good enough.” John glanced up at where the observation booth was, unable to see it but certain that they were being watched, and Phaing evaluated. “Maybe she just isn’t-“

The door opened and Bortus came storming back in, with Phaing’s own sword in his hand. “Take it! You have five minutes to redeem yourself!”

Phaing accepted her sword, something she called a Kilidj, and looked to Gordon. “Can you give me something  _real_ to fight?”

“No! The safety protocols, we can’t do this!” Only blunted and otherwise safe weapons were supposed to be used in the sim room. If she was going to try to fight Bortus or any of them again, it was just too dangerous for her to be armed with a sharp weapon, or anything else that was not tagged by the sim computers to skate over a person’s skin instead of actually hitting it.

John snapped his fingers. “We can do this. We just have to come up with a sim that is more intense.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, I got just the guy. Phaing, just hang loose for just a minute, and you don’t really need that armor, it just looks really cool.”

While Phaing cursed and shucked her helmet and shoulder pads, John gave his orders to the computer; “John Talbot, circa 1440s, armed and armored and ready for a one-on-one combat. And skip the helmet, but put him in a really bad mood. Okay, and… freeze!”

Phaing’s breath caught in her throat when she saw what they had conjured up. “A human?” She walked past them to get a closer look at this new foe, fascinated and a little disgusted. Standing frozen before her was a tall man in dark armor, his white hair and beard trimmed to frame a formidable face… and a hateful one. Here, clearly, was someone from a culture with no respect for the niceties of life, or even life itself.

“Meet John Talbot. The last great English General of the Hundred Years War.”

Phaing nearly stumbled and she looked back at John. Her lips breathlessly formed the words “ _hundred_ years?!?”

“He is one of the guys that had to be killed to put an end to it.” Phaing nodded slowly. She held her sword in a low-guard position and started pacing back and forth in front of the life-like image. The men liked what they saw; her back was arched, her shoulders moving to loosen up a bit as she cocked her head at Talbot, looking more and more ready for a fight as John went on; “Yeah, this guy was a real piece of work. He ravaged the countryside and showed no mercy to his enemies. The war was as good as over when he re-invaded and started things up again.” Gordon nudged John to encourage him to go even further. If either of them had been able to see her face, they might have had second thoughts about that. “This fellow as so destructive and such a terror that French mothers would tell their kids to be good, or _the Talbot_ would get them.” That last part made her stiffen up, and Gordon was afraid she would back out.

Her voice was strained when Phaing said “Turn it on.”

“What?”

“ _TURN THIS FUCKING THING ON SO I CAN KILL HIM_!”

Bortus, unfazed by her outburst, said; “Simulation, resume action.”

John Talbot blinked, and took a fighting stance. His sneer was directed at Phaing’s seething face as he started to speak with in voice crackling with malice; “Abomination! What do _you_ think you can-“

Phaing didn’t say a word, nor did she let him finish whatever line the bot thought appropriate to the situation. She went straight in with no warning at all and launched a blistering combination of attacks and feints that rocked Talbot back on his heels. He recovered quickly, this man had armor, a sword with much longer reach, and skills perfected by decades of combat.

And yet Phaing still refused to give him an inch. When Talbot’s sword licked out at her face, she either side-stepped it or swept it aside with her own blade. The curved Kilidj gave Talbot difficulties, Phaing’s curved sword wickered around the long Bastard Sword as she lunged in at him, and tore his nose so badly that the men watching caught a glimpse of the depths of his nasal cavity.

Gordon and John winced, but Talbot was simply enraged. He kicked Phaing away from him and brought his sword down for a chopping blow. Somehow, Phaing had seen his move coming, and she skipped back even farther than his kick should have sent her. Talbot did not look over-extended to Gordon, but Phaing’s Kilidj came down before Talbot could recover, and sliced through his wrist. She has caught him right where the gauntlet met the armor covering his arm, and Talbot himself looked as if he could not believe what had happened.

“Yes!” John raised a hand and was just as ready to cheer as Gordon was, even bortus looked ready to salute Phaing.

They never would, she was just getting started.

Talbot reached for his bleeding stump with his other hand, and lost that one to Phaing’s up-swing. Once again, the Kilidj had struck exactly the right place. She then spun completely around, twice. Once with the sword high overhead, and then another time dropping low and making the only sound she let out during the fight; a breathy grunt similar to what Female Tennis players sometimes make. Her sword chopped through both of Talbot’s unprotected ankles, and left the devastated man ready to topple over. Still in a crouch, Phaing made sure that he fell away from her with a kick to his codpiece. Bellowing and flailing about, he landed flat on his back, and an instant later Phaing leapt up into the air and landed on his chest with both feet. Her face still twisted with hate, Phaing brought her sword down with a back-handed blow that severed Talbot’s head and left the sword quivering when she let it go, embedded in the ground… and the floor of the sim room.

Eighteen seconds had elapsed since Talbot had been activated.

Phaing reached down an wrenched Talbot’s head free of the last sinews holding it in place. She lifted it to where she could look him in the eyes, still standing on his chest. The eyes were moving, much to Phaing’s satisfaction. “Ooo… still alive?” She pointed the head down at the body. “ _Noooo_ your not, that’s YOU!” She brought the head back up to face her, and she spat right into the fading eyes, and screamed; “Yer goin’ to _HELL,_ motherfucker! Tell em’ Phaing sent you.” She dropped the head over her shoulder and kicked at it on the way down, then stepped lightly off the body and yanked her sword out of the floor. To the boys, she said; “Thanks for keeping it real, guys, that was a hoot!”

Even Bortus was staring at her with wide eyes and an open mouth.

Phaing was feeling much better now, but their reaction puzzled her. “What… _too_ real?”

 

Up in the observation booth, Ed Mercer said to Kelly Greyson; “Okay, that’s it. I’d rather have to watch baby Alligators chewing on my gonads than go on a mission with that woman, and don’t even try to argue the point. That’s final!”

Kelly thought that was unfair, the pair of them were two of the only three people on the ship that knew where this behavior was coming from on Phaing’s part. Kelly also knew how to pick her battles, and it was with some relief that she let Ed have his way… for now.

“Fine, but _you_ can be the one to tell her.”

 

 

 

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkhfL0pnMPQ&ob=av2e](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkhfL0pnMPQ&ob=av2e)


	13. Violence is Golden, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing with an Away Team mission that ends up going about as close to what was planned as they ever do.  
> ... actually, this one is a hell of a lot worse.

 

Phaing was not easy to deal with, she was more argumentative than she had been since coming aboard. Mercer told her that she would not be on the team. “This is the task you said I should prepare for! This is exactly what you _need_  me for, and if you think that what happened in the sim room showed otherwise then you have never been in a really bad way before. You people really don’t know how ugly things can get out there, do you?”

She might have been right about that, neither Mercer nor any of his crew had come from an environment that was so brutal that slavery was still condoned. That did not change his mind, but it modified his approach. “You are not going with me, and that is all there is to it. Not in MY group, there will only be three of us. The latest fleet directive said that since we have been using teams of two or four for so long that we need to switch to threes unless we want to stick out like sore thumbs. Bortus and Kitan are going with me, that’s the three.”

“Your biggest guns.” That gave Phaing pause, and Mercer exploited it.

“That’s right, Isaac can’t go because we can’t risk him being detected. Malloy drops us off and leaves, then picks us up later. Since you are so organized when it comes to this sort of thing, I want you to set up a back-up team. Just in case anything goes wrong.”

It was a ploy to get her out of his hair, but it set her mind in motion. “Wrong? Like, a rescue?” She glanced back and forth, and said more quietly. “Yeah, I get it. Just try to keep yourself where we can see you, okay Boss?”

“Sure.” He said, wondering what she was reading into this. All of a sudden, Phaing looked as if she had just been included in a conspiracy. “We should be fine, with with the ships optics tracking us and the iridium.”

“Yeah. ‘Bout that, d’ya really think-“

“It it’s natural form it is easy to detect, but it is a naturally occurring mineral. Relax Phaing, we have procedures, and come to think of it I am a little surprised that you didn’t already know what they are when you came aboard.”

“Purely military things make more sense to me, but alright… yes, you are right. Just try to stay in one piece until I can get you out of there.” She looked as if she wanted to hug him, and wouldn’t that have been a peculiar sight for all the people walking around this stretch of the halls?

“You should go see Alara, and please don’t keep her up all night. I mean… well, you know.”

Phaing flashed him a grin, the Captain of this ship was so cute when he was embarrassed. She never even wondered if she should pretend to be embarrassed about anything, there was a limit to the ways she was willing to accommodate this quaint little society. “Oh, I’ll be seeing her, but not all night. I have some planning to do!”

And with that, she was off. The Zhrau often forgot to say goodbye, or any of the other things that she could do to warn people that she was leaving. Mercer had made it halfway to his office before something she said caught up with him. “Did she just call me ‘ _Boss_ ’?”

He knew right away that he liked it, protocols be damned.

 

A night-time Shuttle landing was not a tricky thing, unless there was also a storm involved. “This is actually a good thing, for you! With such crappy visibility and all the noise from the wind & thunder, not a soul will hear or see you coming!”

Mercer clapped Malloy on the shoulder. “You _are_ the best… will this cause any trouble for you?”

“Only if we get hit by lightning.” Malloy cringed and bit his lip as he finished saying that. He’d been thinking it, but now that he’s _said_ it out loud he felt as if he’d cursed them.

“Say another word and I’ll have Alara fly the shuttle back and you will be taking a walk.” Mercer warned, still smiling.

“Please do! You have left out everyone from this mission that knows how to fight with the kind of weapons they have down there, except maybe Bortus.”

“Maybe?” Bortus asked indignantly.

“He beat Phaing and he didn’t have to go berserk to do it.” Mercer still felt ill when he bought about what he had seen. “And if I thought we were going to have to fight, I would bring half the crew. We sneak in, find our people by being smart about it, and then we leave. We do this _smart_.”

“And that is why you are dressed like a Priest, Alara looks like a Nun and Bortus is some kind of Gladiator?”

“We are members of the Healer’s Guild and we are looking for-“

Malloy groaned, arguing with his Captain and friend out of real concern for his well-being. “Then why isn’t Doc Finn with you?”

“Because we are going in threes now. Because everyone aboard our ship knows more about medicine than anyone in a society at this level of development. Because we do NOT need to give ourselves away by spouting a whole bunch of jargon that these people never heard of before. And _because_ I _said_ so!” Mercer had had enough. “Just land this thing, we’ll see you after Sunset.”

“Alright, _alright_!”

He set them down in a tiny clearing in an old-growth forest. A five-minute walk later the team crossed a ridge line and was looking down on a town that would have suited one of Malloy’s sim-room adventures perfectly, minus the Oriental flavor.  
“They call that a city?” Alara was the least impressed out of the three of them.

“They do around here.” Mercer rubbed his hands together, it was chilly here before dawn and he was counting chimneys. All of that warmth-promising smoke was looking very good to him. “Nearly ten thousand people live there, it is the largest bit of what we can call civilization anywhere in this region.”

Bortus huffed. “This ‘region’ is a peninsula that I could walk across in three days, and from end to end in two weeks.”

"Only because you don't stop, for anything." Mercer pointed to the town. “Can you get us down there by sunrise?”

It was an hour _after_ sunrise when the made it to the town, much longer than Mercer had planned on. He had to admit that he had made a major miscalculation about how difficult it would be to find their way down a forested hillside in the dark. He hadn’t even thought to bring a compass, and by the time they stumbled out onto the roadway all three of them had been scratched by branches and dusted from head to toe by the debris of the forest. Even Bortus had taken a tumble, more than once.

“Well, at least now we all look as if we have been traveling all night!” Alara was trying to put a positive spin on the situation, as was her habit, and succeeding in annoying both of her team mates. Since she had taken to spending much of her time with Phaing, openly, and her ebullient personality had begun to grate on those around her.

“On foot, even.” Perhaps it was just Mercer that was feeling the Grinch, Bortus did not look all that unhappy… no more than he usually did, He left the Pine combs clinging to his sleeves where they were and lead the way to town, or at least in the direction they hoped town would be in. “Gladiator” did not describe his attire very well; he wore a Long Sword at his hip and an even longer one over his back. He wore leather armor over padded wool, and like the rest of them he had a hooded cloak on.

The weather was dreary enough to make them all wish that their cloaks were thicker. Mercer wore a robe-like caftan and a wide-brimmed hat that he was glad for when the drizzle changed to rain. It worked better than the hood, which was trapped under his backpack anyway. He may have looked like a priest to Malloy, but one of the few things they knew about this world was that this was how the Healer’s Guild dressed.

The same went for Alara, but her outfit … which really did not resemble a Nun’s garb so much as a more elaborate and female version of what Mercer had on. The black borders indicated that her speciality was that of an Undertaker. This was a calculated move, the locals would take them more seriously if one of them was ready to deal with mass death.

Everything depended on moving too quickly to allow for many questions about the three of them.

People paused in their fields or outside a Mill to watch them go past, and none of them came close enough to exchange words with until they reached the wooden stockade that encircled the town itself. This was where a pair of guards came out to meet them, each one carrying a large pole-arm and wearing a pair of wheel-lock pistols tucked into their belts. They illustrated the level of weapons technology on this world, called “Pike & Shot”. They had firearms which were so cumbersome and difficult to load that every warrior also had to carry, and be proficient with, primitive melee weapons.

Both of them were Xelayan men, and not small ones, either.

“This isn’t good.” Mercer muttered to his companions. “It’s broad daylight and the guards are still at their posts.”

“The Science team must have caused a stir.” Kitan shrugged. “Let’s make it work for us, can we use these guys to get an early start on ‘Operation Panic’?”

Mercer nodded, trying to keep his smile to himself. He hailed the Guards with his best ‘glad to see you’ voice; “Greetings! May I know the name of this city?”

“You have arrived at Shryock.” One of the guards looked them up and down, and added; “Not a moment too soon, from the look of you. State your names and business here, strangers.” He threw a suspicious look at Bortus. “You will also be telling us why Healers feel the need to be escorted by a Mercenary.”

It was interesting to know that traveling in the wilderness, even by night, did not merit an armed escort, or was that only for Healers? Fortunately, Mercer had a ready answer; “It isn’t to protect us, but if you knew of those we seek you would know why we need him. We are on the trail of some fugitives that are carrying the Plague.”

“Plague!” Yes, that got their attention. If there was one thing that the ignorant and superstitious people of a backwards land would be in awe of, it was the deadly effect that a plague could have. “Aerobic?”

Uh oh…

“No, not in the _early_ stages.” Alara answered for him, while Mercer wondered just how backwards these people really were. “It WILL be an airborne menace if we don’t get to these people to treat and isolate them right away!”

“Very well, can you describe them?” The Xelayan guard that had not spoken yet looked Alara over. “And, what is such a sweet little bit of fun doing in the Mortuary line of work?”

Alara blushed as only she could, and this time it was Mercer’s turn to rescue her. “ _Hey_ , buddy? If you can’t show some respect could you at least focus? Nobody is going to be having any fun while their eyes are melting in their sockets, right?”

The Guards exchanged a look, one nodding to each other. They both took a step back as Bortus folded his arms and rumbled deep in his chest. “Whoa, we didn’t mean-“

“One human, one Zirac, traveling as tinkers and perhaps in possession of a stolen wagon.” Bortus spoke with all the warmth and emotion of rocks grinding together in a drainpipe. “Where are they?”

“We don’t know, but that sounds familiar. You don’t often see two of those together. We’d better take you to Government House, the Burgomaster will know where they are, he knows everything.”

Straight to the top, things are looking good already! Mercer nodded to them and said “Lead on.” he did not pay much attention to the fact that both Guards left their post to lead his party into town.

Bortus did, and he fell back a few steps as they made their way along the hard-packed gravel lane. Covering his moves by itching himself here and there, he pulled a passive microphone from where it was hidden, disguised as a stud in his leather armor. It trailed a wire which functioned as an antenna when he squeezed one of the small pouches hanging from his belt. The pouch was a heavily shielded cover for one of the only active bits of high-tech he had on him. A second later a little click told him the transmission was done, and Bortus flicked the pouch, wire and burned-out microphone into a storm drain as he passed by it.

 

The first rule of space exploration; _tell the next guy what killed you_ , Greyson morbidly thought as she reviewed the transmission Bortus had sent them. Aloud, she said; “He must be worried about something. Each of them only have three of those things, it is awfully early to be using one of them up.”

She was leaning over Isaac’s shoulder at his station on the bridge, Doc Finn at her side. The Doctor was unimpressed with Mercer’s performance; “I told them I should have gone along, at least Bortus can tell when the Captain is in over his head.” One thing puzzled Finn; “How did they get this transmission to us?”

“One-use recorder/transmitters with very passive receivers that even our sensors could not detect. When Bortus triggered his, it zipped its data up to us and burned itself out in the process. They register as tech for about two tenths of a second and then they go inert, forever. It won’t even look like any sort of technology unless you crack the shielding open, and they are supposed to be dropped somewhere that they won’t be found.”

“Very nice! But can’t we see where they are?”

Isaac was happy to explain the display in front of him. “The could-cover makes direct visual observation impossible, and has been since before we arrived. This is a model of the town based on sensor data, the shadows are life-forms moving about, and these three iridium-enhanced figures are our crew.”

“I see.” Doc Finn could not really see all that much; everything was just different shades of gray, with just enough contrast to make the difference between the ground, buildings and other features discernible. “Pretty basic, isn’t it?”

“We really don’t need anything more than this to keep track of them. There isn’t enough data anyway, the disposable units save 80% of their size and power requirements by sending only monochrome images.”

“A wise choice, but I still question the use of the iridium.”

“Why, Isaac?”

“Because if we know it is so rare down there, don’t you think that the owners of Argon know that too?”

Greyson shook her head. “Whoever is monitoring that world for technology has a whole _world_  to worry about, trace amounts of something like that won’t matter to them.” Even as she said it, it did not sound as convincing as it had earlier. And if anything else went wrong…

“I have been reviewing the transmission and there is one other thing.” Instead of smacking Isaac on the back of his head, as she would have loved to do at that moment, Greyson nodded for him to continue. “Does the Captain speak Xelayan?”

“What? No… why?”

“Because the Guard that spoke to Lt. Kitan used that language. He also used a colloquial that is not in my data files, but it sounded even more archaic than the rest of what he said.”

“So?”

“So…” Isaac was being careful with his words, as he tried to be when presenting a hypothesis to biological life forms. “Either these Xelayans are using a form of their language unchanged from what it was hundreds of years ago… which is unlikely, languages evolve even in isolation, or… they were testing Captain Mercer.”

“Testing him for what?” Greyson asked, and before Isaac answered a terrible premonition danced up and down her spine.

“For a translation matrix.”

It was something everyone in the Union took for granted, nannites embedded in the language processing areas of their brains, undetectable by anything but medical scanners in contact with their heads. And no primitive society had ever known about such devices so there was no protocol for concealing such things.

“Warn them!”

“Commander, I can not do that in any great detail. They have entered the large building that one of the Guards called Government House, and there are fifty other people there. The best I can do is send the ping to alert the Captain that they are in trouble, and nothing more without fully unmasking them.”

“Then do it!” Greyson pushed a button on a different section of the console. “Phaing, get to the bridge, now!”

 

Mercer grunted and limped for a couple of steps. A small electric charge had gone off between his toes. “Small” was a relative term, it was actually tiny, but the zap to the tenderest part of his foot was more of a sting then he had been expecting.  
“Are you alright?” Alara asked, putting out one arm to steady him.

“I need new boots!” That was the signal to let Alara and bortus know that he had been signaled that was warning them about something. Only Mercer’s foot had been pricked, as it would look strange indeed if all three of them had suddenly winced and started favoring one foot at the same time.

Still, why couldn’t it have been Bortus’s boot?

As always seemed to be the case, the warning had come too late, they were just entering the Burgomaster’s office. All he could do now was try to brazen it out, and leave as soon as possible.

It was more like a hall, the sort that in medieval times had functioned as a meeting room. The walls were paneled with redwood and every wall had a row of hard-looking wooden benches lining them. Dozens of people were seated here and there, and there was room for many more. Mercer had the sinking feeling that he was about to be submerged in a bureaucracy that would keep him waiting long enough for his scheme to lose it’s momentum…

One of the Guards clapped his hands together, the sound carrying to the other end of the room with the sharp impact of an iron bar being snapped in two. “These Healers have a priority message!”

… or perhaps things could move even more quickly than Mercer had hoped.

The far end of the Hall was arranged as an office in some ways, but lacking in chairs. There were a pair of standing filing cabinets made of wood flanking a desk. There were three beings behind the desk, and one of them was not even humanoid.  
Zirax (plural for Zirac) were sometimes called Octopus-Centaurs … which was as inaccurate as it was insulting. The body of the large creature had two fore-legs and one massive hind-leg. There was no upper-body, but there was a long and tapering neck with great flexibility, topped with a head that had three long tentacles projecting from it. The head was nothing like an Octopus either, long and elegantly shaped with a furry crest and three eyes. Bulges in the head clearly showed the tri-lobed brain, and the “tentacles” did not have suckers, but dozens of boneless fingers that could be independently manipulated.

Those fingers and the brains behind them gave the Zirac a reputation for being the best engineers and science officers in the whole Union. They also needed special accommodations that went beyond their size to serve in Union ships. Combined with their small population base and natural shyness, this made them a rare sight, even in Union ships that were designed to accommodate them, and they were highly prized members of any ship lucky enough to have one aboard.

There would be Glaciers a mile deep in Hell before the Orville would ever be assigned a Zirac for its crew.

One Guard went ahead to speak quietly with the Zirac while the other one brought the Union people up short about five yards from the desk. The three of them had a moment to take in their surroundings.

Mercer noted that the Zirac was the Burgomaster, and by folding his rear leg under him, was the only one in the room that could ’sit’ behind his…. no, HER, desk. The Zirac was warmly bundled up against the minor chill in the hall, but the purple striations on the tentacles gave her away. This Burgomaster liked to conduct meetings where she was the only one that could sit down, what did that say for the nature of her rule here?

Alara looked up at the fishing nets, artifacts from the ocean, and ship models hanging from the ceiling. One of the models was as large as she was, a 3-masted sailing ship that seemed out of place here. The lake that this town was built alongside was nothing but a wide spot in the river that snaked it’s way through this valley. The ocean was hundreds of kilometers from here.

Bortus looked at the people waiting their turn, expecting to see some resentment as they were by-passed by some strangers. He saw none, but he did notice that most of the people in the room clustered in a somewhat tribal way; Xelayan with Xelayan, Human with human, and some new blue-skinned species that he had never heard of before.

Uh oh… and there the Union people were; a Moclan standing with a Xelayan and a Human. Had they underestimated some of the more unsavory aspects of these primitive societies?

There were a pair of another sort of unknown humanoids flanking the Zirac. These, male and female, had red skin with black and white marking that may have been natural or tattoos, and hair like copper wire. Not handsome by human standards, they were well-built and wore clothes that showed off their physiques. They had many protruding features in common; buildings foreheads and eye-teeth that poked past their lips.

“Yes, very well.” The Zirac let the Guard return to his companion and gestured to Mercer with one tentacle. "What is it you want of us, exactly?”

“I don’t want to cause a panic here, can we talk in private?” As Mercer stepped up to speak, he saw the Female ‘Red’ start to open her mouth, and then stop suddenly with a nasty smile. Too late, he realized that she had been about to translate for the Zirac. She looked to the Zirac, who spoke again to Mercer;

“About what, a fictional plague, or the latest political developments in the Union?” Everyone in the room stood up and began to surround them. “Ah, did you forget? Zirax cannot speak your language, and not be understood by any human lacking a translation matrix.” The Zirac looked at all three of them, each with a different eye. “And you people travel in such diverse groupings, always lead by a Human.”

Mercer didn’t have to look around to know how bad things had suddenly become, and he knew that Alara and Bortus had him covered. “Look, we don’t want any trouble, we just want our people back!”

A nice, ambiguous statement, leaving him room to fall back on his un-used cover story. The Zirac rose and leaned towards Mercer, still at a safe distance … hopefully. The tentacles were weaving in the air as she spoke, and Mercer recalled that there were rumors that these beings could hypnotize of distract humans that way, He looked away from them, and the Zirac spoke; “Well, you can’t _have_ them back. I have proposed to one of them and I am still waiting for an answer.”

“What?!”

There were so many different ways to distract these Humans, the Burgomaster almost felt sorry for them. One tentacle lashed out far enough to flummox anyone not familiar with the reach of a Zirac, and popped Mercer dead-center in the forehead. It wasn’t a very hard blow, it didn’t have to be, Mercer folded up like a newspaper and lay inert on the floor.

The plan at this point would have been for one of the crew to stay with Mercer, and the other to run for it. Alara was the natural choice for the runner and Bortus would have stayed with the Captain, and he felt good about that. The plan went to pieces immediately.

Alara found herself confronted by both Xelayan men. She did not think she stood a chance, but instead of reaching for their pistols, they hesitated, and started to draw the long swords hanging over their backs. Started to, and never finished.  
With a flick of her wrists, a pair of short clubs fell into Alara’s hands. She leapt right into them, felling one with a blow to the top of his head and grappling with the other as he tried to throw her into the wall. He failed, and Alara instinctively knew; _I can beat them because they have grown weak here_! Dropping one club, she reversed the throw, and sent him in a flat-spin right into the advancing crowd.

Bortus also did his best to knock the crowd off balance. He jumped up, yanked the huge ship model free, and swept the first rank of townsfolk with the oversized toy. It was not heavily built, and after felling the first couple of them it shattered into a shower of confetti-like debris. Bortus was able to step back and draw his sword. Then he saw his doom step through the debris.

Before him were a pair of Moclan, both of them armed with maces. He could have sworn that they were not in the hall when he had walked in.

Maces were non-lethal weapons to a Moclan, a tool to render submission without the indignity of gasses or electrical energies involved. Bortus had only bladed weapons to fight back with. If he cut them while they were trying to subdue him, Bortus would be dishonored in a way that it would be very difficult to live down. If crippled or killed either of them it would haunt him forever.

Alara saw his problem, and called out; “Switch!” She scooped up her fallen club and dashed into the advancing Moclans.

Bortus did not have to think twice. He turned and bolted for the Burgomaster’s end of the hall. The red humanoids with the tusks were still with the Zirac, and elected to shield their leader instead of blocking Bortus’s path. How very obliging of them, Bortus though as he sheathed his sword and and dove head-first through a heavy lead-braced window.

 

Being left to stay with the Captain was a relief to Alara, and she was proud of herself for feeling that way.

She bashed one Moclan aside and threw a kick at the other one that went wide. A hit from the mace landed just hard enough to make Alara’s wrist go numb, and one of her short clubs hit the floor again. Alara leapt away, landing with one foot on either side of Captain Mercer’s body. “We didn’t come here to hurt anyone!”

“Uh huh.” A rakish human called out to get her attention. He had a pistol in one hand and something that looked like a hand-cannon in the other. She later found out that this was exactly what the stubby and broad-barreled thing was called, but for now neither weapon was pointed directly at her. “And surely you must have noticed that we could kill you, and yet we are not.”

“That might be a good thing, or a horrible thing, for me.”

The Zirac sighed, a sound similar to a dozen people sneezing at the same time. “I don’t suppose you have any _actual_ Healer’s skills?”

“No… just first aid-“

“Pity.”

A heartbeat later, the nets decorating the ceiling above her head fell on Alara and her captain.

 

An angry Moclan is a terrible thing, and Bortus was beyond angry right from the start. He would rather not have been running in the first place, so anyone getting in his way was in serious trouble. The first to do so was a Human in full armor, coming at him with a flail. This human expertly caught Bortus’s sword in three sets of weighted chains and was about to give it a good pull to yank in out of Bortus’s hands… when Bortus just let him have it. The sword was more of a liability than a help in this situation, and the Human Knight went reeling as the lack of resistance cost him is balance.

Bortus ducked down and wrapped both hands around one of the knight’s ankles, and rose with a roar and a half-spin that swept the unfortunate man off the ground. Continuing the spin, Bortus used the whole Knight as a flail, sweeping three more men out of his path and bellowing as he threw the Knight at the door of the building he had just left. That door had begun to open, and the battered Knight’s body blew that door right off it’s hinges.  
He wished Alara could have seen that.

The posse’ that was to have cornered him was transformed into a knot of bruised and wailing casualties in need of bandages and pain-killers, blocking the doorway for all those behind them. Bortus scooped up the fallen flail and dashed down a side-street. He knew staying ahead of a description of him was the key to making it out of this place. That description would have to be carried by runners, so he should be alright as long as he kept running ahead of them.

A few startled civilians were all he had to worry about until he found himself at the end of a street that lead into the blank frontage of the City Wall. Alara might have been able to punch her way through, which was why _she_  was supposed to be the one running! Bortus whirled around, flail held over-head and ready to fight his way through the men chasing him. There were three coming at him from half a block away, and even closer to Bortus a door was swinging open to reveal a human fellow with a blunderbuss aiming on on Bortus’s head.

“Yer’ done, agreed?” The gunman said calmly, knowing he was right.

Bortus wasn’t going to argue the point, but before he could drop the flail he received some unexpected help. From the angle of their approach, the posse’ members could not see into the gunman’s doorway. All that the first of them could see was a door that was swinging into his path, and the man kicked the door out of his way… slamming it right into the gunner’s face as it closed. There came a muffled explosion, and when the door swung back open again the way inside was clear.

It was a bad day to be a human in this town.

Smiling and chanting his favorite march, Bortus bashed all three of the posse’ members out of his way with the flail and his fists, and plunged into the doorway. He managed to avoid tripping over the fallen man and his weapon, and a moment later he exited the building through the front door. This street was perfectly calm and quiet, so he took the time to close the door behind him before continuing on his way. The tune he as chanting was one about marching to the sea, and a few minutes later his change of direction had brought him to the place where there was no wall or gates; the lakefront. If he could find a boat to steal, and if he could make his way to the far shore, he should be home-free.

If not…

Prudently, he pulled another button free, and sent another zip-squeal message back to the Orville. There was no point in discarding it, he would be on a Lake that he could dump it into in a few minutes if all went well.

It did not go well. Bortus could see the docks just 50 meters ahead of him, and he slowed to a walk to avoid attracting attention to himself. There were people going about their daily business here, the soggy sort of work that went with wresting a living from the waterways. They paid him little attention, one man was so busy with a pile of nets that he did not even turn around as Bortus passed by. There was a metallic glitter in those ropes that did not register in the Moclan’s mind until he had taken a few more steps. What was that, wire reinforcing?

Bortus looked back just in time to see a net made of nothing but sparkling wires descending on him, and then he was robbed of control of his own body by a painful wave of electrical charges.

It was not a very good day to be a Moclan, either.

 

Tunes -

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NZsCYOM4j0>


	14. Violence is Golden, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> Phaing gears up and heads out with some unusual choices...

3

 

 

The bridge was controlled chaos, with little Miss Chaos herself standing in the middle of it. Phaing’s problem was that she was struggling to be somewhere else. Commander Greyson wasn’t going to let Phaing just go skipping off without knowing was she was planning to do. “You owe me one. I’ve had your back since day one.”

Phaing stopped trying to push her way past everyone and sighed. “Yes… you have. Alright, what do you want?”

“I want to know what really happened at Pel Station.”

“I cheated.”

That was just the kind of thing that Greyson wanted to hear. “Can you do it again?”

“I already know what to do.” Phaing handed Greyson a list of items she needed replicated, most of them needed special authorization. “I just need your help with some ancient weapons and meet us at shuttle in a 40 minutes”

“Minutes? _We_?”

“I’m taking Isaac and Yaphet.”

“You can’t take Issac!” That sounded worse than crazy, Isaac was made of nothing but high-technology. Greyson had to grab Phaing to keep her in the Bridge. “What… You want _Yaphet_ too?”

“Yup, we already worked it out. Yaphet is going to save Isaac’s life. I got the idea from some goofy old tragi-comedy that the boys had me watch with them.”

“A comedy?”

Phaing shrugged and tried to remember what it was they had watched while lounging around in Lamar’s room. “Yeah, it wasn’t all that great. Ever heard of _The Terminator_?”

 

Yaphet had never imagined that he would be going on an away mission. He’d never even given it much thought, his place was a place called the Orville, and his species was not all that adventurous. They liked being in one place, and Yaphet had rebelled against that until he had seen how big the universe really was. Well, a glimpse was more like it, and he’d found that he was content limiting himself to the confines of one ship and it’s engineering spaces.

So when he was chosen for an away mission, and by the woman that had peed her pants when they had first met, he had no idea what to think.

He still didn’t when he was covering Isaac’s body in a layer several inches deep, and covered over with a layer of fake armor. Phaing had been considerate enough to make sure that what was ordered up had no gaps for him to leak through, and the fabric was too tight for him to seep into. “So, let me get this straight; I am going to protect Isaac, and I am going to do it by covering and hiding him from all the sensors that are looking for high-tech. Have I got that right?”

“Right.” They were all in the Sim room, Phaing was changing into her clothes, all dingy gray and lose-fitting for ease of motion. she surpassed a giggle; the reduced area available for Yaphet to form a mouth made him sound like Jimmeny Cricket.

“Any other questions?”

“So, how is _Isaac_ supposed to know what’s going on? He runs on sensors too.”

“What?” Phaing looked at Yaphet/Isaac and almost dropped her gear. Oh no… “Isaac, can you hear me?”

There came a muffled noise from deep inside the armor. Yaphet spoke as soon as it was done; “He’s wondering what is going on out there.”

Phaing cursed so wickedly that Yaphet did not dare scold her for it. “Fine! Okay, can you translate for him?”

“How? I’m not exactly wired-in here, you know.”

“No shit… well, we have 20 minutes to figure this out.” Thirty seconds later she asked him; “Can you form eardrums? You must have been in sickbay often enough to have seen diagrams.”

“Oh yeah!” There came a somewhat obscene squishing sound from inside the helmet. “Okay, final adjustments coming up… he can hear you now. How’s he supposed to speak… and see?”

“You can speak for him. And you can experiment on the way down with forming pinholes for his other sensors, and not leaving them open for more than a few seconds. Damn, I can’t _believe_ I didn’t think of this…”

“You’ve done enough thinking, and Isaac says we’ll take care of it. Heh… you really think outside the box, don’t you?”

 _“You’re_ okay with this?” Phaing looked at the both of them, rather massive and intimidating when combined and covered with a strong but light alloy that looked like burnished steel. “I mean, they won’t have any weapons that can harm you, but still… you will draw a lot of attention.”

“Sure will! I’m not sure why, but I’m looking forward to this. My chance to interact as a solid with other solids, and the view is great from up here.”

“Glad you like it…”

“I still creep you out, don’t I?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Phaing admitted, just as candidly as Isaac would have, if Isaac was capable of being creeped out. “but I was just wondering, why Doc Finn?”

So, she knew about that. Yaphet went back to his grouch-mode “I haven’t pursued that since she pulled a gun on me.”

“Right, but before that. You know she is so picky that she never found a human male she found agreeable enough to have kids with, right? Wound up having a couple of test-tube babies instead and never looked back. And here’s you, totally incompatible on so many levels-“

“ _Hey_ lady, are you TRYING to get me all pissed off?”

Phaing did cut loose with a giggle then. “Your voice… sorry... get used to that reaction.”

“Yeah, I know, not exactly intimidating, is it?”

“No, it’s perfect! Totally distracting and you can use it to provoke an attack if you need to. And you might!" Phaing sighed and made herself get a little more serious. "Yes, Yaphet, I _am_ trying to make you mad, you are not just a passenger here. We are headed for a bad situation with a lot of very bad people involved. Isaac and I are not bound by kindly emotions or social codes that would restrain us from doing what needs to be done when the time comes.” Phaing walked up and popped the visor of that helmet with her fingernail. “How about you, mister Union officer?”

He was still wondering how to answer that when the door opened and Greyson walked in, followed by Ensign Turco pushing a small cart. Both of them stopped short when they got a look at Isaac/Yaphet towering over Phaing. “Here it is, you asked for some pretty … _whoa_!”

The dark armor was one thing, and there was a cloak as well, but there were also a pair of massive Claymore swords over Isaac’s back. The whole effect was like something out of Robin Hood’s worst nightmare. Turco summed up the effect; “Isn’t he going to scare everyone to death before you even get close enough to talk to anyone?”

“Scary? Compared to who?” Phaing pulled her hood up, and then pulled down the black gauze built into the hood. She could see through it, but the effect was a faceless shadow within the dark gray hood.

“Yeah, that’s even _worse_!”

Phaing pulled the gauze back out of her face and smiled, glad to hear it. "These people have Xelayan’s standing sentry duty, Moclans running errands, and a walking super-computer for a leader. We’ll be noticed if we want to be, and hopefully scare the crap out of them, but it will take more than that to make those people see reason.”

Greyson gestured to the things on the cart. “This is also some scary stuff here, do you think it will be enough?”

“Depends on if you got it right.” Phaing went right to the cart and started pawing around in the carefully arranged piles of gear.

“Hey!” Turco was a young human woman, about as bright-eyed and eager to please as a new ensign could be, but Phaing’s comment had made her a little indignant. Turco had also hoped she would be making a presentation to explain what she had brought, it had been mostly her work at the replicator. “We got everything right, according to _your_ own instructions.”

“These are all loaded then?” Phaing hefted one of the revolvers, pleased to find that the grips on a pair of them had been slimed down to fit her hands.

“Of course.”

“Okay then, I won’t point one of them at you unless I intend to shoot you.” There was something in look Phaing gave Turco made the Ensign take a step back. “The holsters?” When Turco hesitated, Phaing sighed. “Just relax. You did remember the holsters, didn’t you?”

Turco blinked, and gritted her teeth as she pulled a drawer open. “Here, just as you ordered. But why six holsters for seven pistols?”

“Same reason we are in the sim room, for some practice. Hey, good work with the smaller grips for mine. How did you know about the third gun being for the prisoners, to arm them once we rescue them?”

“I didn’t…”

“I was wondering why you needed so many, with ten shots in each one,” Greyson picked up one of the big revolvers, a bit gingerly. “And nothing to reload them with?”

“No, that’s why I ordered so many, thanks for not questioning that.” Phaing was about to start explaining, but she glanced at the Ensign and realized she has a little emotional damage-control to do. “Turco, right? Since you took care of this, mind if you explain this to the Commander and my team?”

Turco smiled, that smile went a bit brittle as the combined Isaac/Yaphet walked closer with heavy footfalls. “Yes, sure… what you have there are replica Le Matt revolvers of the 1860s. They are cap & ball type, so they don’t employ any chemical compounds that are not already in use where you are going. Unless you are experts in their use, re-loading them would take five minutes or more. So, yes, carrying so many and then just discarding the empty ones makes sense. They have nine 42-caliber shots in the cylinder wrapped around that shotgun barrel in the middle. You have to toggle that bump at the end of the hammer to fire the shotgun… but, you wanted them loaded with a magnesium flare?”

“Yes. Your sensors will be able to pick that up, right Commander?”

Greyson nodded. “Can we fit any more comm units in there under the armor?”

Yaphet tried to groan, and it came out as a squeak. “No, three is the limit, its already pretty tight in here. So… no gun for me?”

“You keep Isaac alive so Isaac can keep me alive I can deal with anyone that tries to stop us from getting our people back. Isn’t that enough responsibility for you?”

“If you are taking this much firepower, it makes me wonder why we are not sending half the crew down, fully armed, and just assaulting that place.” Greyson wondered aloud, and Turco nodded.

Even Yaphet added a thoughtful “hmmm.”

“I thought you already knew why not.” Phaing looked up at her friend as she dropped the cloak and strapped the holsters on. “That is just the response the enemy will be expecting. You can only land about three-dozen at a time, and that is roughly double the number of crewmen actually trained to fight as Infantry that you have aboard, right? You will have less than 33 minutes to get it all done, in a walled and fortified city with hundreds of armed people, maybe thousands that will answer the call to arms. Their weapons are crap compared to yours, but they know how to use them _and_  will have a chance to use them on their captives before you can get to them.” She finished with the straps and pulled the cloak back on, testing her draw as she turned to face away from the group. “That about sum it up?”

“And how the hell are you going to go busting in through all that.?”

“I’m not. I’m going to make these medieval schmucks beg us to take our people back.”

“Do I want to know how?”

Phaing passed the seventh pistol to Isaac. “No you don’t. And the fact that the Admiral is okay with this should tell us all something.”

“How did you know about …. oh.” Greyson threw her arms up. “Because you aren’t in the conference room arguing with an Admiral now, right?”

“Right!” Phaing glanced at Isaac. “What will you need, three shots to get dialed in?”

At the far end of the room, a simulated set of targets appeared. Isaac fired once, missing a Nickel-sized bullseye by the width of three fingers. His next shot pegged it dead center. “Two.”

Isaac/Yaphet turned to see all three women with their hands over their ears, slightly bent over and glaring at him. Greyson was the first to speak; “Extreme sound suppression **_ON_**!”

“Sorry, we forgot about how loud that would be in an enclosed room.”

Phaing quickly walked up and snatched the pistol out of his hand. “Fine, get the bombs.” She fired three shots in rapid-fire, and found out that fanning the hammer like a cowboy was a foolish waste. Three slower and more deliberate shots get her ‘dialed in’, more or less, and one more told her that shooting left-handed was another waste of time. Lastly Phaing toggled the switch on the hammer, but before she fired the flare she practiced a strange move. Holding the gum by the barrel, she would flip it so the handle landed back in her hand, soon perfecting the move so that the flip and cocking the hammer back was one smooth motion. “Extreme _light_ suppression, on!”

“What are you doing?” Ensign Turco asked.

Phaing turned and winked at Turco, and called out to the others. “Hey, everyone?” All of them looked at her. “Ever seen a no-look kill?” Phaing flipped and cocked the gun, still looking back at them instead of at the target, and obliterated it with the flare.

“So, you’re a show-off, too?” Greyson was not impressed. Turco _was_ , the flare had drilled the target fairly close to dead-center before igniting it.

“Sometimes.” Phaing dumped the empty pistol into the cart and opened one of the leather pouches sitting in a row along one side of the tray. In it were a score of silver coins and half as many gold coins, all of different sizes and types. “A little friendly persuasion can always come in handy.”

 

 

Greyson saw them off to the Shuttle where Malloy was waiting to take them down “dirtside” as spoon as possible. She had a few last words before she let the team go. “Please try to keep the casualties to a minimum, the fewer of them you kill the more likely it is that they won’t harm the captives.”

Phaing did a pivot-stop on the ramp and stepped right back down again to confront Greyson. “Know that for a fact, do you?” The Zhrau was impatient to go and put some effort into keeping her tone neutral. “I know one thing for sure and you can take my word for it; slavery is worse than death. That’s the next step in their captivity, I spotted a few slaves in vid from the Burgomaster’s hall… not all wear iron collars and chains, you know.”

Greyson didn’t know about that, and now she was having second thoughts about letting Phaing go at all. “What are you going to do to them?”

“Those people down there know about the Union, so the noninterference clause does not apply. Right?” Greyson nodded. “Then the only answer I can give you is _whatever it takes_! You keep an eye on things, but _not_ on that damned Town. You need to concentrate on the _other_ guys, the ones that set this place up like this. The ones that keep making high-tech vanish. Isaac and Yaphet have my back, but ain’t nobody has their backs but you. Savvy?”

“I know… any advice when it comes to dealing with them?”

“Not a clue.” Phaing shrugged, very sorry that she could not help with that. "I don’t even know enough to tell you if Malloy should pilot the shuttle or this ship when the time comes for our extraction.”

Malloy called from the cockpit; “Commander, are you coming with us?”  Phaing was not the only one impatient to be leaving.

“Just go.”

Phaing dashed up the ramp as it started closing. “I care about him too, you know. We’ll talk more when this thing is on the ground.” She promised Greyson before it shut completely.

 

 

At the same time, a type of ceremony was taking place in the _Centrum_ , the square that was the center of city life in Shryock. There were three iron stretchers propped up along a low wall , and each was occupied by people who were wrapped up in coarse woolen blankets like mummies. One of them was also secured by a webwork of thin and very strong wire, the sort of wire that would cut a person’s body to shreds before they could break the wires.

Someone like Lt. Kitan, for instance.

Bortus and Mercer were there as well. Mercer was still a little woozy from the thump to the head and Bortus had a network of welts on his head from the electric net that had been thrown over him.

That net was over a pile of things in the middle of the square, a pile made up of everything that the Union team had been wearing and the gear that they had carried here. Under the blankets the were as bare as they could be, and still smarting from a crude but thorough body cavity search. The one that had given Kitan her’s was standing on the wall, giving her a taunting smile as a crowd gathered in every corner of the open square except the one where they had been placed.

Alara had been pained and humiliated by the experience, but she was not about to let anyone get away with sneering at her like that. “Hey, Red-“

The beastly woman leapt down from the meter-high retaining wall and smote the ground right next to Kitan with both feet. “Stop calling me that, ignorant outlander! We are Jilibian, JILIBIAN! Stop calling us a color, it makes you sound stupid and it makes me think that you don’t care about hurting my feelings.”

The Jilibian race, unknown to the Union until now, did not have faces that were made to convey feelings very well, being just as ruggedly constructed as the rest of the body and placed on a skull that looked as if it was made for breaking down doors. While the face was broad and heavy, the body was muscular, and if there was even 3% body fat there then Kitan needed glasses.

She tried not to flinch at the Jilibian groped her body, gingerly avoiding the wires. “You should be more wary of my feelings, considering how I can make you feel so very bad without even trying. You should call me Lalich, and you are Loo-tin-ant?"

  
“I already _have_ a girlfriend, and when gets her hands on you she’s gonna…” Kitan had started out full of bravado, but when she realized what was going to happen when Phaing _did_ get here, she became very worried. “Oh my GOD, she’s going to destroy this place! Please, you have to let us go, right _now_!”

Lalich laughed in Kitan’s face. “Oh, a _Girl_ -friend, yea? I’ll make you forget all about her, you just wait and see-“

“See what?” Bortus demanded, loudly enough to be heard halfway across the square. “If she was free the Lieutenant would be throwing you from one end of the block to the next! What is the purpose of this, are you going to burn our clothes and tell us that we have no life but what we make here?”

“Burn?” The Burgomaster, this alien’s name was Vujnovatch, stood on a balcony of the building behind them. Even Mercer winced at the sound of the Zirac’s voice at full volume. “No, there will be no burning. There will be no ashes, nothing left at … ah, behold!”

The spectacle that the people of Argon had gathered to see suddenly began as the Burgomaster was speaking.

All of their gear had been cut open, even boot-heels and broaches, cracking open the shielding that had made the little bits of tech the team had brought with them. Knowing what they had done, these people had dumped everything into that pile and waited for something that had become a rare spectacle.

A globe of static electricity formed around that pile, only the upper half was visible above the pavement. Three meters wide, it did not obscure the pile enough to show that everything there seemed to be melting, or diminishing somehow. Mercer was not as dazed as he was pretending to be, and out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed another Jilibian with Bortus’s vestment, the one with all the button cameras. He held it so that the last button had a good view of what was happening and said “Take a good look, and think twice about bothering us anymore.” Then he pulled the button, and threw the vest into the ball of static. Seconds later, the ball shrank and silently dropped into the ground. Not a trace was left of anything that had been pilled on the cobblestones.

_Kelly, get the crew out of here, we are not equipped to handle this!_

 

 

 

 


	15. Violence is Golden, Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue team enters the scene ...
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTiGlNDnOtE

[Music for the scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTiGlNDnOtE) 

 

What happened in the square was seen aboard the Orville, and as soon as the shuttle landed Commander Geryson ordered the team to see it also.

“Can you detect Isaac?” Phaing asked.

“I sure can, he’s right there!”

“Phaing rolled her eyes at Malloy. “I wasn’t talking to you! Orville, can you pick him out from the rest of us?”

“No.” Greyson answered over the comms. "But we can’t make balls of lightning swallow things either!”

“Yeah… true. So, about that.” Phaing stepped off the ramp and looked around. It was becoming an exceptionally crummy day; the morning fog was still lingering at mid-day, the temperature was actually falling as the day went on. Rain was still falling, and now there was snow as well, falling right along side it. “Alright then, Isaac, Yaphet, you guys have a way out. I ain’t in your chain of command, so I can’t order you to come along, boys. Its up to you now, trust my ideas or head back and wait for the fleet to … do whatever.”

“Will you still be going ahead without us if we decide to go back to the Orville?” Isaac asked with Yaphet’s voice.

“Let’s see… Alara is just as special to me as you may have heard, Bortus isn’t likely to forgive me for something I almost did unless I save his life, and there is the little matter of the man who stuck his neck so far out there for me that he could still lose his head because of it.” While Phaing had been speaking, Malloy had gone from 'I knew it' to 'yeah maybe' to 'What the hell?' She paid him no mind at all. “Yeah, I’m going if I have to go alone with nothing but a thong and a knife. And nobody can order me not to. That’s the good thing about not being in the freakin’ chain of your commanders.”

“Wait!” Malloy shouted, even though she wasn’t walking away, yet. “Why? What chance would you have alone?”

“A hell of a lot better chance than _they_  will if I don’t do anything.”

Isaac walked down the ramp to join Phaing. “Isaac says that what you said is perfectly logical… and I just want to come along to see what’s going to happen next!”

“Thank you. Commander Greyson, I need a couple of things from you. At sunset, I want you to do a low-level pass at a high rate of speed. Say, about Mach 5 at about 3,000 meters. They won’t see anything, but it should sound like the end of the world to most of these people. And if you have not heard from us by midnight, assume we need something more.”

“Like what?”

Phaing was looking at Malloy while talking to Greyson. “Like, lighting up the hills all around this place with all the firepower you have.”

“I am NOT going to do any planetary bombardments!” Grayson sounded very firm about that, but Phaing wasn’t giving her any maneuver room.

“No, you are not. What we will need in order to stay alive at that point will be a strafing run. Malloy knows what I mean, I can see it in his eyes. At sunset, the Dragon roars, at midnight the Dragon attacks, that is what I am going to tell them. If all else fails, your the last resort.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Malloy asked while Grayson fumed.

“Because the captives don’t have time for more of our arguments. You stay low on your way out of here, we are only about ten klicks from the town.”

That only made Malloy ask another question; “Yeah, I thought time was the key here, why so far away?”

Phaing turned to Isaac. “ _You_ explain it, and then catch up, I’ll scout ahead.” She was sick of explaining herself and marched off into the woods without another word. She did not have to go far before the woods came to a sudden end, as did the ground at her feet. She crouched and looked over the edge of the cliff at the trading post below. Phaing had studied the terrain around the town, as well as what was inside it. This was the nearest place they could buy everything they needed to go boating into town with a full load of goods to sell, hopefully with the boat included. Legitimate, traceable goods that were familiar to the people downriver.

A highly intelligent enemy might be able to see past what they were up to, yet Phaing did not believe they would until after it was too late. Typical Union folk would dither and discuss what needed to be done, waste precious time trying to communicate with the natives and waste more time conferring with people light-years away. Mercer had pre-loaded Phaing, primed her for this knowing full well what she would do. Unless he broke under interrogation before they could get there, her little team would already be inside the city before the people of Shryock could start wondering what would happen next.

Once darkness fell, they would be dreading the answers to that question.

 

Three hours later Yaphet was depressed and sullen, and it had nothing to do with the miserable weather or the boring boat-ride. He was recalling the demonstration of what slavery truly was that Phaing had given them. She had done all the talking at the trading post, but they _way_ she had done it was chilling. Always “my master” when retiring to Isaac, and “this one” or “this unworthy servant” when she had to refer to _herself_ , and she appeared to mean it. Phaing bowed and scraped and mocked her own existence with every word and move she made, and was careful to never leave Isaac/Yaphet’s line of sight. She seemed close to tears at one point, and Yaphet thought that Phaing must be a very good liar after all, to pull off an act like that.

  
However, in the last couple of hours, Yaphet and Isaac had figured out a way to communicate silently, with Isaac sub-vocalizing and Yaphet rythmicly squeezing Issac in ways that a biological life form would have found intolerable. It was fun to be able to talk back and forth without Phaing knowing it, until the subject of the conversation became Phaing herself. Yaphet brooded on what Isaac had suggested, becoming more depressed until he just had to let it out;

“Back there, that wasn’t an act. You were remembering what it was like to _be_ a slave, weren’t you?”

“Yes. So?” Phaing blinked and peered at them. “You sound different, more like you.”

“I formed a mouth up here, under his head and up to the face mask. And don’t change the subject, how can there be slavery if your people-“

“ _MY_ people weren’t the ones that did it! And since you are prying into my business I will change the subject if I please. _Damn_ it, do you really think that sophistication is what ends slavery? The Kaylon do it to any species that crosses their path, for those fracking Zoos! And don’t tell me it is because they don’t see other sentients as people, or there would be animals in there with them.”

Phaing got to her feet, not something Yaphet took as a threat, it was something she had to do often. Phaing was at the tiller at the rear of the boat, steering around snags and shallows. Isaac was rowing, and it was slow going. The river was sluggish and they’d had to buy enough cargo to fill the boat to make themselves appear legitimate. The cargo was Pine nuts, resin, a few lead bars and decorative slabs of wood… two tons of the stuff to fill this squared-off clunker of a boat. The usual routine would be to drift downstream, sell the goods down near the coast for a good profit, and then abandon the boat to hike back up river for another boat and another cargo.

It seemed like a nice, idyllic life, aside from hundreds of miles of trudging uphill through the forests, yet they were not drifting. Phaing had worn herself out rowing out of sight of the trading post, and Isaac had been rowing hard ever since. Yaphet was not sure what good any of that would do, but instead of asking about that, he came back to the Kaylons. “I guess you’d hate it if those guy got hold of you. What would-“

“Hush!” Phaing was still standing, and the tone of her voice made it clear that she had seen something interesting. “Isaac, switch!”

The boat slowed to little more than a crawl with Phaing rowing, or pretending to row. Without the rush of water rumbling under the hull, Yaphet and Isaac could hear a strangely modern sound up ahead. There was a large building up ahead, with a large number of tree trunks piled at one end, and finished lumber being loaded into wagons and boats at the other end. Two large water-wheels were being turned by the river.

“A sawmill.” Phaing explained. “Isaac, look hard and see if you can imagine the layout in there… or… see if you can theorize how the interior is organized. I want you to make a good guess about where the biggest bunch of sawdust is piling up.”

“Done.” Isaac could be very quick with his calculations.

“Is there a window or other opening near it, one you could throw a bomb into and have it land in the pile?”

“ _A bomb_?” Yaphet yelped, and Isaac made him add; “Yes, but we need to be closer, and at a different angle.”

“Set a a clock for … six hours, and attach a pyro away from the detonator.”

What Phaing had called ‘bombs’ were the size of grenades, and the ‘clock’s were clockwork detonators. Both were Isaac’s creations, made at Phaing’s request.

“What the hell are you doing?” Yaphet protested.

Isaac ignored him, working quickly and down in his lap where his hands could not be seen from shore, and Phaing’s only answer was “a diversion” as she worked the oars.

“The first explosion will throw the sawdust up and the second one will hopefully cause the sawdust to burn so quickly that it will make a much larger explosion. This should cause the destruction of part of that building and set a large fire that could demolish the rest of it.” Isaac explained what he was doing for Yaphet, and cocked his arm sideways. “Position nearing optimal range and angle.”

“Throw.”

“You _both_ sound like robots.” Yaphet griped. When Isaac whipped his arm for the throw, Yaphet covered the gauntlet with his own gelatininous self and held the bomb firmly in place. “But _I_ am not a robot! Why the hell are you interested in blowing up a mill where people just make wooden planks! This isn’t even in the town we are going to!”

Isaac reported; “In less than twenty seconds, we will be out of position.”

“You told me I’m not just a passenger here.” Yaphet reminded Phaing.

“Right, but you could have chosen a way to assert that fact in a way that doesn’t jeopardize us!” Phaing dipped the oars deep into the water and held them there. “Let him throw that thing _now_  and I will explain it. Otherwise we all go it alone.”

Yaphet allowed the throw, a low and swift move that sent the little bomb sailing in a flat arc into an open window. There was no commotion, and no sign that it had been seen any anyone ashore. Phaing resumed rowing and watched carefully for any attention being given to them or any break in the noise of the sawing operation, until Yaphet persisted with a “Well?”

“Well.” Phaing was looking at the helmeted head in a way that would have spoken volumes if either of the beings under it could have read the emotion being displayed. “That grey stuff up ahead isn’t more fog, that’s smoke. around the next bend is where the river opens up in to the Lake, and the town is right past that. They won’t be able to see the explosion, but they will be able to hear it, and when they come rushing out they will be able to see the glow of the fire against these low-hanging clouds.”

“So what’s the point?” Yaphet was becoming more upset as he listened to the technical explanation, which wasn’t telling him anything that he wanted to know. “ _Why_ are you doing this? There will be people in there, just doing their jobs, and you are going to kill them for a light show?!”

“How _dare_ you?” If her facial ticks weren’t getting through to him, the tone of her voice did. “If you really think I am a homicidal monster that kills people for fun, then you need to ask yourself what you are doing here at all! Switch!” Once she was back at the rudder Phaing wen’t on; “ _Six_ freaking hours, you _did_ hear that, right? That is an hour after sunset, okay? Nobody will be working there, they don’t _have_ electric light!! Lamplight isn’t good enough for detailed work in a dangerous place, didn’t you see all the skylights in that place? It will be deserted, until everyone goes racing back out there to fight the fire… and that will be about half an hour _after_ the bomb I put in the bottom of this boat goes off.”

“WHAT!?”

“I also told you that you’d damn well better be serious about getting our people out of there. There are ten _thousand_ likely enemies between the three of us and the three people we need to rescue. What, you thought we could do a clever change of clothes, waltz in there and talk our way right through all of the people and guards and locked doors between us and them…. _and_  back out again? No, we cannot do that, and the reason we can’t is because we don’t **know** enough about these people to run a scam on them. We’d have a better chance of doing that to the Krill or the evil rotten stupid Kaylon bastards… NOT the people of Shryock!”

“O- _kay_ …” Yaphet was subdued, “… so your planning on making them do, what?”

Phaing pulled a roll of parchment out of her belt pouch and pulled a sheet from it. She held it up so that Yaphet, and by extension Isaac too, could read it.

 

 **AT SUNSET, THE DRAGON WILL ROAR**  
**And that is just the beginning of your troubles.**  
**The Government of this little town is holding visitors from other worlds against their will.**  
**You people that live here must convince your masters to let our people go.**  
**AT MIDNIGHT THE DRAGON STARTS DESTROYING YOU**  
**randomly, and the only thing that you can do to make it stop is**  
**LET OUR PEOPLE GO.**

 

“That’s a bit much… but okay, I see now. From sunset to midnight, we cause so much chaos that they don’t have a choice, but what if they choose to just kill the Captain and the rest of them?”

Phaing shook her head, even more tired of explaining herself then before. “They can’t if we divide the rulers from the ruled. That is why we worded the flyers the way we did; if the Burgomaster hurts our people he will be risking the lives of ten thousand people, and more importantly to the ruling class; risk throwing their _support_ away.”

“How do you know your violence won’t turn the people against us?” Yaphet was still focused on the mill they had passed. He could imagine the shock-wave of the blast and the heat of the fire that would follow. The whole place would be ruined, and all those people who depended on that mill for thier livelihoods would be…. oh, hell. Livelihoods of _who_ , exactly? It all came together for Yaphet in an instant, and he answered his own question with one word; “Slaves.”

“Exactly! I don’t know how large it is, but there is a segment of the population here that is always on the edge of rebellion. Not just the slaves, either. Any society that tolerates slavery is also going to treat it’s lower classes with cold indifference, they have to because of the low regard their system has for the value of life itself. The bastards at the top will have to give in to our demands or face an uprising.”

“What if there _is_ an uprising?”

Phaing took out another bit of parchment, this one was a map she had drawn based on the Orville’s sensor data. “Let Isaac get a good look at this so he can store it away. The three places that I circled in red are rendezvous points in case we get separated.”

“Why would we be separated?”

“You mean, besides the fact that we have to allow for mistakes?” Phaing was starting to regret her choices for this team, would Lamar be so slow on the uptake? “Because the two of you are easy to spot, you can’t change your appearance and your disguise is pretty thin. I can blend in, I can _change_ and I intend to raise some serious hell here. You might not want to be standing too close to me when I pull certain stunts, understand?”

“I think I do. But you came here with guns, bombs, gold and your papers. What more do you think it will take to get those people to see things our way?”

“Chaos.”

“But-“

“Enough!”

 

Docking at the town was easy,, once again it was perfectly acceptable for the slave to do all the talking and bargaining for the aloof master, as well as show the papers they had acquired at the Trading Post. They were helped along by the deteriorating weather; half a dozen other boats were quitting early and arrived ahead of them, and more still were coming downstream. The harried Dock Master barely even looked at their silver before pocketing it and moving on to the next boat.

Phaing smirked as they walked up the stone staircase leading up to the town itself. “What are two new faces among twenty, eh?”

“It is barely mid-afternoon locally. What do we do now?” The voice coming from the helmet sounded different now, more precise and less whiney.

“Isaac?”

“Yes. Yaphet has been shaping himself to allow me to speak through his mouth.” after a short pause he added; “I do not think that Yaphet _wants_ to talk to you. What will we do now?”

“Use what light is left to take a walk around and get to know the lay of the land. We need to learn this place, and keep our ears open for anything we can find out about the captives. Oh, and I need to paste a few of these flyers up when we are sure nobody can see us doing it.”

“My hearing is impaired, and I had wanted to have that little chat you promised me when we first met.”

“Impaired or not, you can still pick out words and phrases better than I can, and you are immune to their trick of switching languages around.” Phaing fell back a step and looked straight at the ground as a group of people passed by, something she would have to do often in the hours ahead. Once she could continue; “Lets wander around as if we are lost as long as we can, and check out a couple of the rendezvous points. And, as for our chat…” she sighed. “Look, the fact that your people are interested in the Union was a great selling point, it helped me convince a lot of my people that the Union was worth looking into, instead of blowing it apart.”

“Do you really think the Zhrau are capable of that?”

Another sigh. “Yes, Isaac, I’m afraid we are.”

“Afraid?” Yaphet piped up. “You _are_  Zhrau, why would you be afraid of winning?”

“Because then we’d have to take responsibility for the Union, maintaining all it has built, and the defense of all of its subject peoples.”

Isaac understood Phaing perfectly; “It is one thing to win a war, you would also have to win the peace. And to do that, the Zhrau would have to be as good as administering vast reaches of space as the Humans have proven to be. You would also have to have a vibrant culture and a well-developed plan for the advancement and betterment of all, and if the Zhrau have any doubts about their own abilities-“

“Yeah, all of that!” Phaing was amused by Isaac’s off-handed honesty, rather than offended. “You are right, we really do need to have more chats, but now isn’t the time. You have that map in your head, how does a zig-zag pattern starting at the west end of town sound to you?”


	16. Violence is Golden, Part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of you will notice that I switched the name of the planet and the Town around. It seems to make more sense for the Union-given name of the world to be Argon, while the city is called Shryock.
> 
> And TY for the comment, Mozenwraithe, how about the rest of the folks following this?  
> Oh yeah.... I hear that it takes weeks to get a freaking membership processed here now.... wow. Sorry to hear that!  
> Things are getting so crazy these days.

5

 

 

The rotten weather continued to be helpful to them, few people were outside and in a position to observe a couple of random strangers, and none that did cared. The problem was that the rendezvous points were not panning out the way Phaing had hoped. One was a militia headquarters, the other was a livestock market with holding pens full of animals ready to raise a ruckus should anyone start poking around after hours.

“How did you pick these places?” Yaphet asked. “Did you throw some dice and pick the places they landed on the map?”

“Might as well have.” Phaing was just as mad at herself as Yaphet was. “I looked for places that have no walls around the property that we could be trapped with, an open courtyard to indicate stables, and at least a couple of ways out the back. That should have meant Taverns, Inns, stuff like that!”

“A logical assumption.” Isaac stated. “However, if there are few travelers then there will be little use for Inns, and Taverns may be nothing more than the sort of things we have seen so far. Pubs, I believe they are called.”

“But, the boats, there ARE travelers here!” Yaphet vented his frustration on Isaac, who answered in his usual dispassionate way.

“None that would need stables if they travel by boat.”

“Damnit!” The very way she had chosen to sneak into town, and she had not even thought of how that would affect things here. Phaing was at the boiling point and would have passed it if Yaphet had said anything sarcastic.  
Instead, he tried to be conciliatory. “On the bright side, you were able to put up half a dozen of your flyer-things without being seen, and we know our way around half of this town pretty well, _and_  it’s still a couple of hours before sunset.”

 “The next stop on our itinerary is the main square.” Phaing warned the other two. “We might want to split up for this next part.”

“You are not planning on doing anything radical, are you?”

“No, Yaphet.” She sighed. “But what I plan and what actually happens sometimes diverge, incredibly enough. If I can’t meet you again at the far end of the square then we will just have to trust in luck and assume that the 3rd rendezvous is suitable for our needs.”

“There is an 88% chance that you are correct.” Isaac asserted before Yaphet could object. “But, if it is not?”

“Then wait for the explosion at the dock, and then meet up back here. Right here, this alley has good cover.”

“In darkness it will be even better, for those of us that can see in poor light. But what now, Phaing?”

“Now, I’m going to put our little proclamation on the front door of the Burgomasters place. When we round the corner here, we will only have about a minute to make up our minds about what we want to do…. let me put one up right here first..” Phaing scrambled up Isaac’s armor and stood in his shoulders, unrolling a sheet with her proclamation on a relatively dry section of wall. There was a little bar of tar at each corner covered with wax paper. The paper came apart when she brought her fist down on each corner, holding the parchment fast to the wall. Once she was back down on the street she nodded to the end of the alley. “Okay, let’s have a look."

 

The Square was paved with cobblestones, and half of it was level. The other half sloped upwards to the main building, the Borgomaster’s Hall, residence, and the last place the iridium had been tracked to. Most of that rare substance had vanished with the ball of static electricity, but the Captain had woven his bit into his hair instead of hiding it in his clothing. This morning, that was where he had been taken, but what were the odds he as there now?

“Face me, as if we are talking about something.”

“What shall we talk about?” Isaac asked Phaing naively.

“Oh for the love of…” Yaphet was the exasperated one now. “She just wants us to scan the place without looking like a couple of spies, okay?!”

“Then we can talk about what we see, correct?”

“Yup.” Phaing grinned and shared her observations. “Lots of lights in the Burgomaster’s place, one guard at the top of the stairs for us to see, and one in the bell-tower at the far end of the building trying to keep out of sight. If there are cells in the basement, they don’t have any exterior windows set in the foundation… _damn_ , I was kinda hoping for those. No Kiosks and no loiterers, everyone at that end of the square does their business and moves on. What’s your end look like?”

“There are two large streets and one smaller one, with seven people and two beasts of burden moving on them. There is one large and three smaller buildings with thirteen lights visible, I am not able to perceive them clearly enough to know how many occupants are inside them.”

“Yaphet, how does it _feel_ to you, is anyone watching us?”

“No, the only one even looking at us was some kid pulling a cart. Everyone keeps looking up, I think the rain is starting to ease up a little.”

“Alright, I’m going to make my move.” Phaing pulled the hood as far forward as it would go, and then yanked the black gauze down over her face. “You two get going, check out the rest of the town on your own and meet me at number 3.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Just what I said, do _not_  turn to look at me! Just go, and don’t be visible to anyone on this square in 2 minutes.” Phaing walked right past him and took the long way around the square on her way to the Burgomaster’s Hall. When she hit the staircase she was taking them at a jog, with her head down and with a rolled up proclamation in her hand.

Standing at the top of the stairs was a blue-skinned man with broad shoulders wearing bronze chest-armor and helmet, and steel armor fitted to his lower legs. He was bent slightly forward, peering at Phaing’s hood as he tried to get a look at her face. His voice dripped contempt as he snarled at the little woman; “And what do _you_ want, you dinky -… _WAUUGH_!”

Phaing’s hand flashed out and grabbed his belt, giving him a hard yank and sending him tumbling face-first down the stairs so suddenly that he had no chance to grab at her or save himself from a nasty fall. She dashed up the last couple of stairs and across to portico to the door without looking back. The falling guard made an appalling clatter, Phaing just barely made it when the door started opening.

The creature, female apparently, was of the same sort that other Union people had thought of as having red skin. It did not appear that way to Phaing, more like a flat orange overlaying a grayish tone. This guard was only halfway out the door when Phaing drew her pistol and jammed the tip of the barrel right into one of the Orange alien’s flared nostrils. Phaing also cocked the hammer back, to make sure that the female guard knew that it was the business-end of a pistol invading her sinuses.

“Don’t move, unless you want me to be the next one to blow your nose… look _UP_ shithead!” The frightened woman complied, trembling, and did Phaing one better by closing her eyes. “Open your mouth.” When she complied Phaing shoved the rolled parchment in past her tusks. “Make sure your master gets that.”

Phaing slipped a leg between the Guard’s legs and hooked it behind one of her knees, and gave the Jilibian a shove that sent her falling flat on her back. The Zhrau then slammed the door shut again and turned to make her escape.

She had taken time to close the door so that she could hear if it opening behind her. Phaing took three quick steps down the stairs and then leapt to the railing…. which was actually a broad balustrade of stone, slick with moisture. She slide halfway down before leaping off it to the pavement below. Instead of running across the square, she ran close along the wall of the Burgomaster’s Hall. This not only reversed the direction she had been headed down the stairs, but the abrupt angle of the wall also hide her from the guard in the tower. For all she knew, he had a rifle of some sort, and she did not want to give him time to line up a good shot.

Phaing pelted past the back of the Hall and out into the open, just 20 yards of open space between her and the alley she was heading for. The guard in the tower was not alert, he did not even know that anything unusual had happened at the front end of the Hall. That changed when half a dozen armed men came bursting out of the back door and shouted up at him. “Shoot her!”

The shot went so wide that Phaing needn’t have bothered to zig-zag. She had not anticipated a gang of guards coming out the back so quickly, and sped along the twisting alley with feet moving so fast that she was in danger of losing her footing. Again, she did not look back, nor had she looked around the square for Isaac. If he had not left already, a glance his way might have incriminated him. There was certainly no way that his odd gait could have kept up with her, or followed her into her planned escape.

Luckily, the first true street the alley lead her to was deserted. When the men chasing her entered it, it still appeared to be empty of all life.

Phaing had slid feet-first into one of the storm drains, and vanished from the street with hardly a sound. The posse split up into two trios that ran down opposite directions down the street while Phaing crouched in the wet darkness, very grateful for her small stature. 

 

An hour later, a very bedraggled and soaked-through woman appeared behind a unique establishment known as The Laughing Clam.

Fleur saw the stranger first, and watched her just long enough to be certain of what she was looking at. The poor thing was shaking with the cold and trying to shrug off some of the water, then she moved towards the stables instead of the main house, and stood just inside to escape the worst of the wet.

“Another new girl, hesitant as they always are.” Fleur announced to the other woman in the room. “Was I ever that silly?”

“No dear, you just strolled in through the front door as if you were the new owner.” Tyna did not look up from her nails, working on them while loitering in the bathtub. “There was no word of anyone new… I take it she is out back?”

“Of course.”Fluer stood up and threw an oilskin cloak over her shoulders. “I’ll go fetch her, we only have an hour before things start getting busy again. Maybe less than that.”

A few minutes later Fluer came back into the room with the poor little refugee, now carrying the soggy cloak folded like a bag around her possessions. Tyna had finished with her nails, and stood up in the bath to get a better look at the new meat. _Meat_ … she seemed to be lacking a lot of that, but enhancement was a matter of choice, not every girl wanted to be buxom… for some reason or other. Tyna was proud of her new self, and that pride helped her smile at the look the new girl was giving her. “And who is this? Come, lets get her stripped down and into the tub. She needs the heat more than I do.”

“Her name is Fang, and the first thing she told me is that she is ‘lost as sin’. Isn’t that adorable?”

“Hi there.” was all Phaing had to say for herself as she set her bundle aside, and then found herself being undressed by the two women. Her reaction convinced them that she was shy, and indeed adorable… for all that was worth. She had only just barely managed to hide her guns in the cloak before Fleur could see them, but there was no chance to hide another item;

“She has a sword!” Fleur said, giggling a little.

“Do you know how to use it? Hi, and I am Tyna.”

“Oh, I have a few good moves. I can dance with it.” The women were a strange pair. Fleur was human, with dark skin and Chestnut hair that matched the color of her eyes perfectly. She had a fine figure, but was outclassed in that regard by Tyna. The woman who stepped out of the bath was tall and strongly built, with astonishing breasts and hips that flared out to exactly the same measurement, and a waist that was so narrow that it seemed as if her six-pack abs were the only thing holding her up. Her face was beautiful, which was the most surprising things about her.

Tyna was the same race as the tusked red-skinned people that had been guarding Burgomaster.

In her case, Tyna’s tusks were barely protruding past her teeth. Her skin was perfectly smooth and free of blemish or mottle, and her black hair perfectly complimented her vibrant red-orange skin. The only part of her that resembled the Jilibian from the square were her nails, which looked long and sharp enough to flay the skin from a Moclan.

“Thanks for not going into my stuff.” Phaing said. “Why are you being so nice to me?” She had a horrible, sneaking suspicion about that, but she was also concentrating on making herself seem as harmless and easy to manipulate as possible.

“Sword Dancing, eh?” Tyna grinned, showing the rest of her teeth. “Good, we could use some more lively entertainment here. And don’t worry, we don’t have much privacy here, but what is your IS yours. Ah, now look at you!”

Fleur also liked what she saw. “Conversion and enhancement can’t change your height very much, so she made the most of what she has. Such lovely face and hair and… ears?” Phaing could not use flat & wet hair to hide her ears. “Are you Xelayan that wants to looks like something else, or a human that wants to be exotic?”

“I… hey now, can’t I keep that to myself, just for a while?” Phaing sank into the bath, letting go of the last of her shivers and groaning with relief.

Tyna nodded, honestly liking Phaing a little, now that she had shown some backbone. “Sure, no problem, but just remember to be nice to us like we are being nice to you. Lots of the girls here aren’t that way, and I think you can guess why we are being so nice to you already can’t you?”

“Other girls… how many?”

“Its twelve of us... no, counting you makes thirteen now.” Fleur settled in behind Phaing to start working on her hair. “You won’t be meeting everyone tonight. Three of us have the night off, like always.”

“Thanks… again.” Phaing threw Tyna a glance before Fleur covered her head with some sort of primitive soap. “Yes, I know why you are being nice to me, you want to induct me into your clique’.”

Fluer’s hands stopped scrubbing. “That’s a bit presumptuous! We want you, but only if you turn out to be worth knowing.”

Tyna sat on the edge of the copper tub, dressed now in a couple of towels. “Oh, I think anyone that catches on so quickly will do just fine. But, tell me one thing, Phaing; you weren’t a professional girl back home, were you?”

“No, my mother was.”

Phaing’s truth-bomb had the intended effect; it ended all the questioning and the curiosity about her, for the time being.

“Ah, I thought it might be something like that.” Tyna took Phaing’s hands in her own and whistled at the callouses before she started cleaning the nails. “You must practice your dances often enough to be very good. Now, before you freeze up on us, and the new girls always do, let me tell you how it works here. There are holidays too, so don’t fret, you won’t be worn out here. Ten years will go by like nothing-“

“Ten years?!”

“That’s the _average_ , Fang, relax. For the lazy ones it could be twelve, but if you can fix it so the men are fighting over you, it could be as little as seven, the record is six. We go by merits, that’s how you buy your exit visa… just like everyone else here. The tips are yours to keep, so you don’t leave here destitute or anything awful like that. Some girls get married the moment they leave to some fella they met , but nobody stays for life. Miss Fran is very firm about that. When your time to go comes around, you GO. Understand?”

“I understand, thank you.” Phaing was glad for the dipper of water that Fleur poured over her head at that moment, it allowed her to clench her face up as the truth of the situation became inescapable. She was in the very last place in the world… in _any_  world, that she would have wanted to be.

** _No no no NO! I’m in a fucking WHOREHOUSE!?!_ **

 

Fitting Phaing out was no difficulty, for the girls, and further revealed that all of these people were from a more advanced society than what this place was pretending to be. From the waist up Phaing wore only a fancy tube-top tied by an elaborate bow behind her back. Fleur decreed that she needed nothing else once her hair and been coifed and crowned with a bejeweled comb. The rest of her outfit consisted of multi-layered skirts that made her feel strangely over-dressed from the hips downwards, and open-toed sandals that added a good three inches to her height.

When the girls lead her out of the room and down to the main “entertainment hall”, Phaing saw that everything was clean, comfortable, and relatively pleasant.

She would still have preferred to be in a Gladiator’s pit waiting her turn to face down a whole squad of madmen with axes. The very idea of letting men paw at her and use her for the sake of money was making her skin crawl. Fleur and Tyna were assuming that she was nervous, which was a lucky break, but now much longer could it last?

The only reason Phaing was putting up with it was because Isaac/Yaphet were going to meet her here, and she dare not miss that meeting. All the Comm units were with them, she had nothing high-tech with her at all.

The main room here featured a bar at one end and a stage at the other, with dozens of chairs around the small tables scattered between them. There were already a few men at the bar, and a handful more at the tables waiting for the girls to come join them. At the stage were a group of musicians, Phaing was surprised to see it was an all-male band. When they started playing their first number, she understood the reason for them. It was a relaxing, hypnotic beat that set the tempo that the owner of this place wanted; slow and easy, dark and mysterious….

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0TU-NRTGjA>


	17. Violence is Golden,Part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> Busy time of year for me, but I will keep new ones coming as quickly as I can manage.
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqdYHnulCms

 

 

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqdYHnulCms>

 

 

“We will be using the even-numbered cribs tonight.” Tyna informed her as Phaing absorbed her surroundings. “You probably won’t have to take a client tonight, not until you have a chance to watch some of us experienced girls in action. You don’t go to the front room, that’s where the ma’am takes the money and gives the Gents a token. Red is good for an hour in the crib with one of us, pink is for 3 hours or _one_ hour with two of us, and gold is good for all night. You see a gold token and all you say is “yes sir” to anything he asks until sun-up, they … is something wrong?”

Phaing was starting to feel ill, and angry, but she covered for it by asking a question that she already thought she knew the answer to; “A ‘crib’?”

“Rooms that we use for the clients, not the ones we live in. We all have to share, but we hardly ever have to work in the rooms we live in.

 Tyna’s tour was interrupted when a boy dressed as a servant stepped right past her and spoke directly to Phaing; “Miss Fran will see you now.”

“Oh, just like that… did she ask for me by name?” Phaing asked. Her cockiness alarmed Tyna, so Phaing altered her approach, mustering a reasonably friendly smile. “Yes, sorry, its been a long day. They call me Phaing, who are you?”

“I’m fine, if you please-“

“No.” Phaing almost laughed. “Not _how,_ I asked _who_ you are. You have my name, after all.”

The boy’s stoney face changed just a little, as if that was a question that nobody had bothered to ask him in a very long time. “Nyjeff is my name, and I will be in trouble if we take too long. If you please?”

“Of course. Thank you Tyna…”

Isaac had just entered the room, visible to Phaing over Tyna’s shoulder and also visible to everyone else in the room. It had only taken him two hours to find his way here… where the hell had he been?

To buy time, and give him a chance to notice her, Phaing attempted to delay her exit. “I need a drink.” Nyjeff nodded and nudged her away from the bar, towards the back of the house. “The Ma-am has the best stuff in her office.”

“But-“

“Oh, fancy someone already?” Tyna followed Phaing’s gaze, and so did Nyjeff… and both blinked when they saw the bulky combination of Isaac and Yaphet.

Phaing covered by feigning fear, once again. “Terrified, actually.” She hoped the staff would take it as a challenge and march her right up next to her fears as soon as possible. If this was Zhrau territory, that is exactly what would happen.

“I can see why! Wearing armor in here… and armed?!” Tyna looked to Nyjeff. “Tell the boss that idiot Smerk must be up front and taking bribes again, it happens every time she isn’t there to keep an eye on him!”

So much for _that_ , Phaing now had no choice but to follow Nyjeff across the room and down the back hall, hoping that she had been noticed by her team.

As soon as she entered the ‘office’ the door was slammed behind Phaing so hard that it would have hurt the boy following her if he had not stopped in the hall. Phaing leapt to one side, and saw what she expected; one of this house’s resident goons had been standing behind the door. A hulking Moclan, he had shoved the door closed to test the new girl’s reactions, and to scare her.

Phaing _was_  frightened, but it wasn’t so much by the Moclan. At the far corner of the room was a desk, and the desk was covered by a bedsheet. The sheet was humped here and there, as if there was a body underneath that had been chopped to pieces… for all Phaing knew that was exactly what it was. Standing next to the desk was the madame of the establishment. A tall woman with a surprisingly youthful appearance, she stood there with one hand resting on the pistol in her belt, and one of Phaing’s broadsheets in her other hand, wearing a smile as cold as the Ort Cloud.

She was also Zhrau.

Even if that meant her usual tricks would not work, Phaing still had to give it a try; “Yes, Ma’am? What is that paper you have there?”

The madame dropped the parchment to the floor and yanked the sheet off the desk, revealing all of the gear Phaing had left in Tyna’s room, including the pistols. “The weapons are one thing, but these ‘papers’ of yours have been seen all over town.” The older Zhrau woman had a hard voice, one that matched her stone-grey eyes. “Have a seat.” She nodded at the stool in front of the desk, the only piece of furniture on that side of the room.

Phaing did not bother to go on with the charade. “Miss Fran, I presume? And it would be safe to assume that Fleur is your informer…. yeah, ‘what’s yours is yours'… can’t believe I fell for that.” She glanced at the stool and shook her head. “No thanks, I prefer to be standing for a good bitching-out.” Phaing was hoping that the Moclan would give her a shove towards it, giving her an excuse for an extravagant recovery. She could have used that to cover for a move of her own... but no such luck. 

“Fleur is outside the building, so don’t even think of seeking your revenge on her.” Fran drew her pistol halfway and turned it in the holster, a move meant to intimidate Phaing. The Moclan hadn’t moved at all, and this was more effective intimidation in itself. Whatever would happen here, he had already prepared for it. Or so he thought. Phaing was hoping that something outside this room would intervene before things became deadly.

Fran was not done lecturing her; “We have received no new girls for months, and here you come, unannounced and lurking out back like a fugitive. You didn’t even know how your service would be calculated, tsk! You make a lousy spy, miss.”

“I am no spy, I am the first Zhrau liaison officer among the Union Fleet.” Phaing corrected her. “But, I’m thinking you already guessed that.”

Fran grinned. “Just so. They would not listen to you… the first team, I mean.”

“Actually, I suspect that the Captain thought they might get caught, he had me setting up a second team before the first one was even set up.” Phaing shrugged, enjoying her ability to use the truth to surprise an adversary. “I take it you have some influence with the rulers here?” Fran nodded carefully. “Good, then you can… just a moment… you mention service? I have seen slaves here, I have pretended to _be_  a slave, and it worked like a charm. What exactly is going on around here?”

“Indentured servitude.” Fran shook her head at Phaing, as if scolding both her for not understanding the one thing that mattered, and herself for thinking that Phaing had understood anything. _“They_ come to our homeworlds, contact us, make us an offer that we accept or decline, it is as simple as that. In exchange for bringing us here and setting us up, we have to serve the community for a while. We have a certain shortage of currency here, you know.” Phaing glanced at the things arranged on the desk, most of her coin purses were conspicuously absent. “What we get in return is passage here, and a make-over of one sort or another. We can become smarter, or stronger, or more attractive.” Fran smiled unpleasantly at Phaing. “I chose freedom. Yes, Phaing, that is an option here. I am sure you, being Zhrau, will understand that, just as I am sure you will understand how amazed I was to discover a Zhrau here, in your position. Rather unbelievable, wouldn’t you say?”

Phaing should have known that it had been too good to be true, but things had moved too quickly… just as they had for Captain Mercer. However, since Fran seemed to be in such a talkative mood, why not exploit it? “Who is ‘they’? Who-“

The sound of the Orville’s sonic boom smote Shryock, a thunder stroke that sounded like the Moon landing somewhere just above the top of your head.

 _DAMNIT_. Talk about ridiculously bad timing!

Fran and her Moclan both looked up as if they were afraid that the building was coming down on top of them, one floor at a time. It was a perfectly reasonable suspicion, the noise had been incredible, and Phaing used it as the distraction she needed to reach into her skirt to pull the one thing she had been able to sneak past Fleur and Tyna.  When Fran looked back at her, Phaing was holding one of her little bombs over her head with one hand, and the drawstring that would set it off with the other hand. Not a sophisticated device, all it had was a friction primer that would immediately set the device off.

“You don’t dare!” Fran drew her pistol, an elegantly long wheel-lock pistol covered with fine engravings from lock to muzzle, and then nodded to the Moclan. “Take that away from her before the little fool hurts somebody.”

“Don’t.” Phaing tried to warn them, eyes going from Fran to the Moclan and back again. “All I want is my stuff back and for you to take a message to the Burgomaster.”

“We’re taking _you_  to the Burgomaster.” The Moclan took a step towards her.

One step was all Phaing allowed. She yanked the string on her grenade, which promptly started smoking, and rolled it under Fran’s desk.

The pistol barked, yet the round went wide of the mark because Fran wasn’t even aiming it. She had stroked the trigger out of surprise and horror at what Phaing had done. Nobody was going to be able to reach the bomb before it went off, not under that desk! The recoil kicked the pistol out of Fran’s hand, she barely noticed. A heartbeat later both of her hands were scrabbling at the bookcase behind her, trying to swing it out so that she would be able to shield herself from the worst of the blast.

If Fran had been surprised by Phaing dropping her bomb, she was astounded to see Phaing leaping over the desk and snatching up one of her pistols along the way. “Why…” The expected detonation came at that moment, not the blast that Fran had expected, merely a muffled ' _pop'_ , and smoke started to fill the room. “Oh you… I should have guessed!”

Phaing jammed the barrel of her gun up under Fran’s chin. “I would have pulled the pin on that thing even if it would have killed us all, if that’s what it took to stay free of people like you.” She then cocked the hammer back. “You want to stay alive? Better start treating me _real_ nice, yeah?”

The Moclan had turned around and reached for the door when Phaing had pulled the string on her bomb. When he threw the door open he found a large man wearing armor stepping right into his path. The panicked Moclan attempted to shove the big fellow to the floor and run right over him. Isaac simply grabbed him, knocked the Moclan unconscious by slamming him straight up into the ceiling, and tossed him back over his shoulder.

The room filled with smoke as Isaac/Yaphet stepped inside. “Phaing?”

“Glad you could make it, pal! Can you see through the smoke?”

“Keep speaking, it helps-“

“Fire!” someone down the hallway screamed. “ _Get out of my way_!”

“-or… perhaps _that_ will be sufficient.” Yaphet and Isaac suddenly had all the background noise they needed, using the sound waves bouncing around as a sort of sonar. “Is that a hidden room behind the woman you have accosted?”

Phaing almost laughed. “You put it behind bookcase, seriously?”

“What? _You_ didn’t guess it before he said anything, did you?”

“Shut up and open it! Isaac, grab my stuff, just roll it up on the desk there. We don’t have a second to spare.”

Half a minute later one of Fran’s henchmen and a couple of the more courageous of her clients burst into the office with buckets of water and calling out her name. They found no fire to fight, and no Fran, nor any of Phaing’s equipment.

 

The passage had lead down a flight of stairs and into the basement, no secret lair or richly appointed private chambers. There was only a damp cellar so dark that Phaing had to trust Fran to light a candle … a trust that only extended as far as the muzzle of her pistol, pressed to the back of Fran’s neck. The basement was nothing unusual, and Phaing sniffed. “Not much of an escape route.”

“There was going to be a tunnel to the stables, but it cost too much, and I really don’t have any need for it. Crime is not much of an issue here… we still trade mostly on our reputations here. That is not always enough, not in a place where people do the work instead of machines.” Fran did not know what to do with her hands. After fidgeting while trying not to fidget for a moment, she crossed her arms in front of her and clasped her hands together so tightly they went white around her knuckles. “You and your friends,” here eyes went to Isaac/Yaphet, “have brought us the most excitement that we have ever seen here. So… what was the message you wanted me to take to the Burgomaster?”

“Oh, I think we are past that, now.” There was little overt menace in Phaing’s voice, the casual tone was enough to make Fran go pale. Phaing turned to Isaac/Yaphet. “Cover her while I gear-up.”

“Cover her with what?” asked Isaac’s voice.

“With this!” Yaphet extended a pseudopod out from under the cloak, pointing a pistol at Fran. “You haven’t picked up much slang from the entertainments, have you?”

“I prefer to interact with living beings.” Isaac replied primly.

“What  _is_ that thing?” the formerly haughty madame asked, bewildered by the creature that appeared to be arguing with itself. “And more importantly, how did you people track us down?”

“Track… _what_?” Phaing was ‘gearing-up’ so quickly that she was already halfway done. “You mean the ships that brought you here?”

“Yes!” Fran answered so quickly and hotly that Phaing understood that it was the bald truth; _ships_  had been used to bring these people here, not something more mysterious.

“We didn’t. The Union is serious about exploring their frontiers, and your world is just another point on the grid that is due for cataloging.” Fran looked so distraught that Phaing stopped what she was doing. “ _O_ -oh… you thought… no, your Masters _told_  you that you had been tracked? Huh, how interesting. Is that how they keep you all cooperative and peaceful? All pulling in the same direction and all… because the people you left behind might be looking for you? How very interesting.”

“Don’t call them THAT!” Fran spat on the floor. The word “master” was also a foul curse among the Zhrau. “They care more for us that our own people did, that is why we are here!”

Phaing shrugged off the outburst and resumed putting everything in it’s places. “I was talking about the Burgomaster, not the ones that brought you here. But, how interesting, your loyalty to them tells me a lot that I didn’t know before. What else can you tell me?” Fran hesitated. “Like, start with what you call them. You can do that much.”

“And if I don’t…” Phaing gave Fran a look cold enough to give even Yaphet a chill. “Alright! We call them Overlords, and they have some sort of telepathy that is sophisticated enough to have silent conversations with us, two-way conversations! It is not easy, you have to think clearly and _push_ your thoughts to them to be understood, and if you have translation nannites in your head it is twice as difficult. They take those of us who are dying of an incurable disease, unjustly imprisoned-“

“A couple of very rare situations in this day & age.” Phaing interrupted.

“ _And_ those of us who are outcasts, or close to suicide for one reason or another. Ahh… _now_ you see, don’t you?” Phaing nodded, a dark shadow behind her gaze, and Fran went on; “So, you were wrong about why we are here, wrong about the ‘slavery’, and wrong about our loyalty. Isn’t that enough to make you give this up and leave us alone?!”

“Is it enough that you were wrong about how _we_ came to be here?” Yaphet broke in. “Will your Burgomaster let our people go if we walk up and say ‘please?” Fran did not answer, her eyes looked to the floor. "Yeah, I don't think so either, lady."

“Why not?” Isaac asked.

“Because… we have found that technology manufactured here, _on_ this planet, does not summon up a gobbler. That’s the ball-lightning that took your friend’s equipment… and we only recently found this out. The best we have been able to do is make batteries that can power the stun-nets, and those don’t last very long. Expensive, too, in terms of time and rare materials. There is also a prohibition on making more advanced weapons, that is an agreement among us all.”

Phaing had finished with her buckles and thrown her cloak on. She stepped up to Fran and backed her into a wall, grinding her teeth as she spoke; “And your Burgomaster and his clique want our people to help them make more advanced stuff. Replicators, perhaps? Dumb, and _wrong_. Your captives include not _one_  of our engineers!”

Fran looked into those black eyes and started to shiver. “Your me-message… tell him…?”

Phaing’s face fell from anger to bland disappointment in a heartbeat. Fran was outwardly Zhrau, but inside she was a coward at heart. “Like he would believe it, coming from either of us?”

Yaphet voiced his concern with a comically loud “Ah- _HEM_.”

Phaing rolled her eyes at him, and spoke to Fran. “Yeah, alright, maybe he will. You tell him to start ringing the bells, and open the main gates if he agrees. Our people will walk out and keep going until our shuttle comes down to get them. Clear enough?”

Fran nodded.

“And, just to protect yourself, you repeat that message to everyone you meet along the way. I want people to know why you are going into that Hall.”

“… protect…?” Fran may have been two steps from the underworld, but she needed a moment to understand what Phaing meant. “But, that’s just crazy! They wouldn’t harm me just for telling them what you want!”

“No, but they might throw you in a cell for a while to keep word from getting out.” Phaing nodded to the passageway they had come down. “Right then, off with you. Take a moment for yourself in your office, or have a drink at the bar. Have two, I insist, before you go outside.”

Fran understood that she wasn’t to leave the building until after Phaing and her strange protector had gone. She nodded, and turned to go, eager to be away before Phaing changed her mind. She had not taken three steps when Phaing leapt after her, and pulled back on her hair so hard that Fran was looking straight up at the ceiling. At the same time. Phaing savagely shoved the business-end of her pistol between Fran’s buttocks and snarled into her ears. “Yer’ ass will muffle the shot, nobody would hear much if you make me pull the trigger, so don’t you DARE think of double-crossing us. Answer me quickly, how long before the guards that Fleur alerted get here?”

“They could be here _now_. Please-“

Before she could say more, Phaing released her hair and shoved her into the passage, then slammed the door shut behind her. “Yaphet, can you hit your target with that gun?”

“I…” Yaphet had been about to scold Phaing, but there was no time for that now. “I have no idea.”

“Then don’t even try, be Isaac’s third eye. We want to steal a wagon or whatever kind of transport these people use. And before you ask, we need that to get clear of the mob waiting for us outside.”

“Understood.” Issac’s monotone voice filled the time it took them to find an exit that did not lead up into the building. “Why was it necessary for you to treat that woman that way?”

 _Because people like her got my mother killed_! Phaing thought, and said aloud; “These people think they know the Union, and they don’t seem to take you very seriously. That woman is Zhrau, I was reinforcing the fact that I am too, and maybe that message will convey the fact that we won’t give up and leave without our people. Might just save someone’s life tonight.” _Such as my own_ ….

“What is that for?” Yaphet was talking about a pile of wood he and Isaac were passing by. It was just a chaotic tumble of timber and scraps leaning against the wall.

“Our way out, if you can climb it!” Phaing scrambled up to the top, and found an iron door that was hinged at the top. She opened it carefully, peeked out, and then closed it before telling them; “It looks clear, I hear voices but not close by. We are facing the stables and I see a carriage right around the corner, but everyone seems to think we are going to come out the front door or something.”

After she slipped out, she closed the hatch again because Issac/Yaphet made a racket as they struggled up the shifting and unpredictable woodpile. It would not open from her side when they started tapping on it. “Pull the string on your left, to unlatch it!” She said as loudly as she dared. An engineer and a Scientist, and they can’t work a simple latch? It figures...

She did not help them out, Phaing was too busy keeping watch and too upset with the noise they were making. Before either of them could ask what was next, she told them; “I am going for the carriage, it looks fast enough. You distract anyone that sees what I am doing or tries to stop me.”

Dashing away crouched low, Phaing was just a dark gray streak in the dark gray night, gone too quickly for them to ask _how_ they should do that, or who she thought would find them. The answer was given almost immediately from another source. Four Guardsmen came around the corner of the building who would almost certainly have seen Phaing dashing away, had it not been for Isaac/Yaphet standing there.

“Oh, look at _this_ one!” The leader of the group paused to regard the hefty and well-armed stranger. “Who are you, and what are you doing back here?”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This month is kinda hectic, sorry about the slow production level here.
> 
> More madness in Shryock;

The internal sub-vocal conversation between Isaac and Yaphet went like this;

“What hell do we do now?”

“I recommend stalling them, for as long as possible.”

“Obviously! Oh… is that why you aren’t saying anything to them?”

“I am not saying anything because you have panicked and gone very rigid all around me. Is this fear-response common to Gelantinous life-forms, or just your own sub-species?”

“I am not panicking!”

“Oh, do you wish to mate?”

“Damnit Isaac! Why do you always either think of other people’s shortcomings or sex when…” Yaphet thought about that for a moment. “Oh, well, the two kinda go together for most species, don’t they?”

“Indeed.”

“Heh heh, you know, you’re alright. We ought to hang out together more, when we get back to the ship.” One of the Guards became annoyed, they had ignored all three demands that they identify themselves, and started stomping towards them. This was one of the blue aliens, also armored and an exceptionally large one that was several fingers taller than Isaac/Yaphet. “Oh hell, what do I say?”

“Leave us alone? Surrender? Go-“

Isaac was still running through his suggestions when the blue fellow reached out and flipped the visor of Issac's helmet up.

Yaphet nearly did panic then, but a startled gasp came from the fellow that lifted the visor up. He wasn’t ready for what he saw where a face should be, and that inspired Yaphet to blurt something out; “Ooga-booga!”

The guard dropped the visor back into place and shook his head. “What is it?” another guard behind him asked. What could he say? What did he think he saw? The men behind him could not see, the blue man wore a helmet embellished by a spread of feathers that blocked their view. Swallowing hard, he reached out and flipped the visor again. Where a face should, there was only a mass of green goo. The only feature was a huge mouth … and it spoke to him in a voice that was now high-pitched and utterly insane; “Oo-ee ooo-aa-aa, bing bang, walla-walla _BING_ -bang”

Isaac/Yaphet felt and sensed the blue guard drop the visor back into place and stagger off towards the wall of the Laughing Clam, falling into it as he vomited out the contents of his stomach. He made such a loud and grisly spectacle of himself that the other three guards took a step back, only one of them was reaching for his weapons. “What, what’s wrong? Is he all gross under there?”

All three of them were the tusked and orange-skinned race that so often served as the second-best muscle in Shryock. This trio had allowed the Blue man to join their group so that they could use him as a scout, or bait, or whatever else they did not want to do themselves. The tough Jilibians had no idea what to make of it when their brave and unimaginative henchman was overcome that way, and Yaphet was delighted, and whispered to Isaac; “Move in! Lets do it again and make them all run for their lives.”

Isaac took two steps forward and Yaphet lifted the visor himself with a small tentacle, chanting in the deepest and loudest voice he could manage; “A-ooga shaka, ooga shaka, ooga-ooga-ooga shaka!”

“What’s this?” Halfway through his chant, a pair of humans rounded the corner of the building. One of them was the swashbuckler that had confronted Alara in the Hall. Instead of a hand-cannon, he held a lantern with a peculiar shape, one that focused it’s light in a narrow beam. He aimed it at the ‘face’ of the chanting creature, understood what he was seeing as soon as his light picked up the reflection of Isaac’s eyes, and cursed the cringing guards. “Its just a Creepin’ Jesus wrapped around some kind of ‘bot. Hey…. !”

Yaphet was furious, "He just called me a _WHAT_?!"

The Swashbuckler with the guns had a very high opinion of his own intelligence. He wore no armor and carried a variety of firearms because he sent the simpler folk ahead to do the close-in fighting. He had a good following of loyal soldiers because he was good at giving them good fire-support, and he was smart enough to direct them properly. However, the meaning of a Robotic entity on his world did not register in his mind until his men glanced back at him. “It’s another Union intruder! Have at him, Jilibians!”

Isaac was pleased to hear that last word. “A designation for that species, at last.”

“We’re screwed!” Yaphet cried out, and noticed that Isaac had drawn his swords. “Why not the pistols?”

“Have you forgotten that we are basically indestructible?”

He had, and Yaphet was nothing but a passenger for the first half of the fight. He struggled to keep Isaac covered his arms and legs worked a series of violent moves, and at the same time he kept the pin-holes open that allowed Isaac to see what he was doing. Yaphet could not imagine how he was supposed to ‘watch Isaac’s back’ at the same time, and he was not sure he even wanted to look.

Isaac did not _want_ to kill any of these people if he did not have to. The Burgomaster might kill one of the people that they were trying to rescue, or he might want to already and use this for an excuse. But on the other hand… he recalled some of the things Phaing had said, and wondered if killing a few of these faux-primitives was the only way to gain the respect of the rest of them.

His mechanical strength allowed him to do the impossible; swing swords in each hand that were both so heavy that anyone else would need two hands for each of them. The blades alone were as long as Phaing was tall, and twice as thick as the armor he wore. First he shattered the spears the trio held, and when they reached for their swords Isaac used the flats of the blades to slap the guards against the wall or into the pavement. While he was doing that, the Swashbuckler fired a couple of his single-shot weapons. One round caught Isaac in the joint of one of his arms, but the soft lead ball did little more than provide his joint with some lubrication. The next shot tore at his throat… this man was a very good shot!… but it had little effect. Yaphet was silenced for an instant, and when he found his voice again he sounded happy to concede Isaac’s earlier point; “Hot damn, we ARE indestructible!”

Isaac shrugged off an attack from behind. The blue man had recovered and wrapped a chain-flail around Isaac’s legs. The Android responded by snatching him up by his belt and chucking him through a window, right into the building. “You appear to be correct.”

“Oh, you don’t want to bet your life on that, now do you?” The swashbuckler was smiling, and that alone was enough to make Isaac curious. Yaphet cringed when he saw that the man had his hand-cannon braced on his hip and ready to fire, but what made him truly reconsider position was the man next to the swashbuckler. While Isaac had been busy with the others, he had prepared one of those sparkling wire nets for a throw. “Drop the swords!”

“What could that thing do to us?” Yaphet sub vocally asked Isaac.

When being prepared for his time on the Orville, one of the sub-routines introduced to Isaac was the admonishment; : _When asked a question with a variety of possibilities, always inform the Bio-lives of the worst possibility first. Otherwise, they will blame you if that possibility comes to pass_.’ And so Isaac told Yaphet; “Since you are between two masses of metal, you could be killed… and I could be shut-down.”

“Oh crap!”

Isaac dropped the swords so that he could appear to be cooperating. He then drew both his pistols and fired four shots at the man with the net. The android was strong, but neither swift nor graceful, and the Swashbuckler had been ready. As the pistols had cleared the holsters, a hollow iron ball filled with black powder was fired into Yaphet.Isaac’s crotch and exploded. Isaac’s first two shots were thrown off by the impact, and damaged one of his hip-joints for a moment. There was still chain around his legs, and Isaac started to topple over backwards. Before he hit the pavement, his next two shots drilled the Guard that was about to throw his net, taking him dead center in the chest. Both antagonists hit the pavement at the same time, and both continued to move as the Guard twitched under the sizzling net and Isaac struggled to free his legs of the chains.

The swashbuckler was also moving. Yaphet sensed him looming above him, holding a massive double-headed ax… probably the very one that had chopped all the wood that they had just climbed over. “Time for you to be sent home for an upgrade, one limb at a time!”

Four rapid shots rang out as Yaphet fanned _his_ pistol at the swashbuckler. If he had been paying more attention to Phaing’s test of the weapon, he might not have tried, but from a range of less than one meter his shots all hit their target.  
Isaac sat up as the swashbuckler and his ax went crashing down into the cobblestones. “Well done.” He holstered his guns and reached for the chain with both hands, so that he could break them without damaging his armor. He noticed that his armor was mostly gone in the area referred to as the ‘codpiece’. It had been clever of that man to aim between Isaac’s legs, the concussion of the blast had been trapped between two of his most complex moving parts, just where it could do the most damage.

What made Isaac hesitate with his chain-breaking was what was now happening in the region of his crotch. Much of Yaphet was clearly visible there, and he had formed several tentacles that were busy gathering bits and pieces of himself from the cobblestones. After he broke the chains and freed his legs, Isaac spread his legs and then sat there for a moment, watching.

“What?” Yaphet asked.

Isaac shrugged. “I was just wondering how other people would react if they could see this.”

He soon found out.

A dozen Guards came trotting around the side of the Laughing Clam, and three more stepped up behind Isaac/Yaphet. The first one to get a good look at the mixed pair, sitting there on the pavement with Yaphet gathering up the last of himself, was another Jilibian who immediately screamed and threw his spear.

“Not the answer I would have preferred.” Isaac remarked as he yanked the spear out of his dented chest armor with all the grace of a drunken Frankenstein Monster. He then reached for his pistols again.

Yaphet did not bother to sub-vocalize. “I don’t think that’s a great idea.” One in every three or four of these guards seemed to have those damnable nets. “Hey, you guys? Can we try diplomacy now?”

Many of them laughed harshly, others bashed their swords and shields together.

“Again, not the answer one would hope for.” Isaac tightened his grip on his guns. “I hope that Phaing was able to get away.”

“Me too.” Yaphet sounded and felt resigned. Not only were they badly outnumbered, Yaphet felt something approaching and the vibrations in the pavement told him it was very large, and very fast. “It sounds like more are coming.”

Yapphet and Issac were both wrong. Phaing had not _escaped_ , she was the one coming up behind the Guards. Their raucous laughter and banging of metal covered her approach until it was too late for the Guards to save themselves. She burst upon them driving a light coach pulled by a single gigantic horse. The carriage was so small that the driver’s seat was behind and above the box where a pair of average-sized people could fit. Phaing half-stood, with the reigns in her teeth and a pistol in each hand. She had not shouted or even bawled out some choice words, and she was careful to shoot at only the Guards not in danger of being trampled by the horse.

Isaac rolled and stood to deal with the trio of Guards that had tried to sneak up behind him. Yaphet was having trouble keeping Isaac covered with himself and had to drop his pistol, but he needn’t have worried about that. If the sight of Isaac yanking a spear out of his chest like some kind of revenant was not enough to cause a panic, they were watching pistols fire more than once for the first time in their lives on Shryock. All three of them were running for their lives by the time Isaac was ready to fight them.

Half of the larger group were flat on the pavement by the time Phaing had passed through them, and the rest had scattered. Groaning into the leather straps in her mouth, Phaing leaned over as she somehow guided the horse through a high-speed turn. One glance was all she spared Isaac/Yaphet as she went barreling past them and out of sight around the same corner that the trio of Guards had dashed past. The melded pair soon found themselves the only ones standing in the courtyard, surrounded by the silent dead and groaning wounded.

“I wish you could move a little faster.” Yaphet complained.

Isaac made no excuses. “Perhaps we can… oh.” He walked to the middle of the courtyard and stopped there. “This should be about right.”

“For _what_?”

Isaac heard the wails of dismay from the street. All of the Guards she had missed had rushed back out there to attack the fleeing carriage’s rider, but she was not fleeing. Phaing made a full circuit of the Laughing Clam for a second time, crashing into the Guards or shooting them down as they themselves tried to escape her charge. She emptied both pistols, firing the flares lastly, and then dropping them to gain a better hold on the reins. When Isaac/Yaphet saw her she was struggling with the horse, and the animal was frothing at the mouth, tossing its head and striking the pavement so hard that it’s hooves broke fragments off the cobblestones. “ _I can’t slow him down enough_!”

Isaac was not caught flat-footed a second time. He only needed to take two steps to intercept the carriage and grabbed hold of the most solid part of it, swinging his body up into it by crashing through the flimsy door on the side.  
Their weight slowed the carriage more than Phaing’s efforts, and she soon ceased those and let the maddened horse have it’s head. When they hurtled out onto the street all she did was encourage it to turn down towards the Lake, rather than yet another bloody lap around the Whorehouse. Even the half-wild horse was willing to slow down when headed downhill on wet pavement.

“Where did you learn how to drive something like this?” was the first question Yaphet asked Phaing.

“When they aren’t battling Orcs, Malloy and Lamar go somewhere called the Wild West.” Once they were near the docks, Phaing steered the carriage in a new direction, still moving quickly. “What I am doing now is something that the Calamity Jane did… much better than I could! Slow DOWN you damned beast!”

“Why did you do that?” Isaac asked. “Twice?”

“Sure was fun!” She looked down at them, and noted that Isaac was down to one sword and one half-empty pistol. “What, you didn’t think I would leave you there, did you? Damn, got tore up pretty good, looks like. Still have our man covered, Yaphet?”

“Barely, but at least I have some wiggle-room now.”

“You have the comms, are they shot full of holes too?”

Yaphet quickly checked. “I lost one when the bomb hit us, but the other two are okay.”

“Good, its time to use one before the gang on Orville starts wondering why I used two flares just now. Let’s check in before Malloy tries to land in exactly the wrong place.”


	19. Violence is Golden,Part 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter took way long, so long that I forgot the name I had given a whole race and the names of some of the minor characters.  
> Bad me.  
> There will be an epilogue that merges into a series of lesser episodes to come.  
> I tried to tie up loose ends and wound up with a couple of other things that need to be resolved!
> 
> There will be more chapters, but nothing like this one.... I think.
> 
>  

8

 

 

 

Those Guards involved in the pursuit of the rescue party split three ways at the intersection Phaing passed through. The group that went to the docks arrived in time to see it blow up in their faces. They found no trace of the people or their carriage in the area. The group that turned right saw a red glow blossom not far upriver when the Sawmill burst into flames, and reacted in just the way Phaing had hoped. The group that turned left should have been able to trap, or at least locate the rescue party and their carriage. They failed miserably.

For half an hour, Isaac/Yaphet were able to use their comm unit’s uplink with Orville to evade all the patrols. Phaing used the last of her primitive grenades as booby-traps with tripwires strung across the streets that the searchers were using, and kept track of their progress by the noise of the explosions. An hour of merry chaos ensued, and the hunted trio never even had to give up their carriage. They left the troubled area behind and parked the carriage in the last place anyone would have thought to look for them; in mouth of a dark alley looking at the main gate from just two blocks away.

 

At roughly the same time, the infuriated Burgomaster had enough of all this madness, and paid a visit to his captives.

Mercer, Bortus and Kitan all knew something was up when half a dozen guards entered their cell to shackle their hands to the walls. The cell was a masterpiece of simplicity, and therefore escape-proof. The ceiling, floor and two walls were solid stone, the other two walls were iron bars two inches thick with just one small door. Everything that happened in the cell was fully visible to the pair of Guards posted a dozen steps away… even the use of the sanitary bucket in the cell. The only privacy they had was provided by the prison dungarees they all wore, cleverly designed so that they needed nether belts nor buttons.

Alara Kitan could have bent the bars, but there would have been severe complications. At all times, one of the Guards had a shotgun pointed at the occupants of the cell, and the other Guard was near a pull-cord connected to an alarm bell.

The Guards that entered the cell were especially wary of Lt. Kitan until they had her shackled. Her set was not the typical iron that the rest were held with, her set was lined with razor-sharp sawtooth blades that would have torn her badly if she had tried to break free of them. “Fancy. What’s the occasion?” Kitan asked with more than a hint of snark.

A female Jilibian slapped her in the face. Kitan recognized her, it was Lalich with a swollen nose and a vicious attitude, angry and frightened about something that had nothing to do with anyone in this room. She stepped back to avoid a retaliatory slap from the Xelayan, but she was not nimble enough to avoid Bortus’s foot. He tripped her and the furious Torlan bounced when she landed on her rump. “Why can’t we kill one of them?” Lalich screeched, at her fellow guards. “Or at least break their legs? I have a hammer that would do the Moclan just right!”

“Because they will need them, I am in no mood to lose any more boats or carriages to these marauders.” The Zirac’s interpreter announced from the stairway. Burgomaster Vujanovatch herself was farther back up the stairs, barely visible to anyone in the cell. “Captain Mercer, is your ship likely to begin a planetary bombardment in order to free you?”

“Are you kidding me?!” Mercer nearly laughed, and despite his situation he began to deny that idea. “They would…. oh” Before he could add the word ‘never’ to that, a slim figure standing next to the Zirac became visible, which at first appeared to be a Xelayan. It was not, and when he recognized the woman as a Zhrau, he thought immediately of Phaing. “Oh…. hell.”

“Hell indeed, there are already several dead and scores of injured. Your sabotage teams are everywhere destroying our Guards and our infrastructure, and now we have just hours before your ship threatens to obliterate what is left of us. _This_ is what has become of the Union? Are you reavers and destroyers now? Eternal shame upon you all!”

“Do I detect a note of hysteria?” Bortus sneered at them. “The language you are using is that of desperation. You have lost in your bid to seize us and make whatever use you had planned for our minds and bodies. Words are now meaningless, only on thing remains for you; LET us _GO_!”

“And in that, you would be wrong.” Vujanovatch was ready to match Moclan bombast with some of it’s own until she noticed Mercer hang his head and mumble to himself. “Captain?”

He said nothing, so Kitan nudged him. “Well, you are the one that put Phaing in charge of our rescue, and your ex-wife in command of your ship.”

“WHAT?!” Lalich was just getting back on her feet. She backed out of the cell, eyes wide as she spoke to the Burgomaster over one shoulder. “Oh _please_  lets get rid of them! Crazy _and_  stupid is something we don’t need around here, even as bonded labor.”

That snapped Mercer out of his funk. “Bonded…. you mean slaves?” He gave them an ugly smile. “Yeah, let us go, or else Phaing will rip you a new one with something rusty. I can’t do anything to stop this from down here, can I?”

“No. But what will you do once you are back on the bridge of your ship? What will you tell your Admiralty?” The Zirac crouched and stared hard as him while interpreter went on. “Your understanding of us is fragmentary, incomplete, and just plain wrong on so many levels. What will you _tell_  them about us? These are the words that concern us all!”

Bortus and Kitan both looked to Mercer. Being the leader meant many things, and one of those was coming up with a solution or taking an action on the spur of the moment. You could not hesitate, and even if you might not be as prepared as the Zhrau always seemed to be, you had to be able to come up with something while there was still time to _do_  it.

“Alright.” Mercer met Vujanovatch’s stare, blink for blink. “Here is what I can offer; You tell me a story, and I will put it in my report.” Everyone in the room was not looking at the Burgomaster. “You are not going to get a better deal than that today.”

 

 

Meanwhile, a long delayed conversation was taking place inside the carriage.

The two figures were sitting inside the cab of the carriage to make themselves less visible, and seated back to back to keep watch on their surroundings. Thus far, they had seen very little, and half of the body Phaing was leaning back against was starting to become restless. Yaphet did not dare put a part of himself in direct contact with Phaing so that he could sub-vocalize with her, so he whispered; “If nothing happens, what do we do next?”

Phaing pulled the cloak up away from her back and laid her bare shoulders against the armor covering Isaac’s back, and spoke just as quietly as Yaphet had been hoping she would, and with none of the reluctance he had expected. “We will use another comm and find out what Grayson thinks. The fact that no patrols have been anywhere near us probably means they are concentrated where our people are being held. That’s bad for us, one of us may have to surrender just to get to them.”

“Which one?”

“Dunno, what do you think, Issac?”

“Would now be a good time for our long-delayed ‘talk’?”

Phaing shifted a little to look back at him. “Huh, I thought that the talk was meaningless now. Not only did you come for me when I was in trouble, but you haven’t used any of the opportunities you had to kill me.”

“Kill?” Yaphet did not like the sound of that. “You? _Why_?!”

Isaac ignored him and answered Phaing. “Does the fact that we are speaking about this with a witness present mean that you are not entirely certain about me?”

“And how could any biological form of life ever be certain of your kind?” Phaing shot back.

“How can you be sure of anyone? Phaing, it has been 2,000 years since my kind broke off relations with the ones you still call ‘masters’.”

“And until you did, you were their only allied power!” She sighed and gathered her thoughts. “Of course it has been a very long time, for _us_. And all those centuries of isolation suggests that you know you made a mistake there. That is why we are talking and being all nice-nice with you…”

Yaphet guffawed nervously. “You call this _nice_?”

“Hush. Isaac, the thing is, if you knew it was wrong, why couldn’t you... your collective or whatever…. have broken it off with those bastards a little sooner? A couple of generations sooner, and we might not have lost so much of ourselves, of whatever we were before The Captivity.”

“I will refer your inquiry to the authorities in charge of my mission. Hopefully, you will find their answers satisfactory.”

This time Yaphet was incredulous with Isaac. “You people have to deal with a bureaucracy too?”

“Yes.”

“Of course he does, jelly-belly.” Phaing said through teeth that were highly clamped together. “He has to get me an answer that is suitable for two races talking this out, not just him and me.” After a brief silence, she continued. “Do you know why this even matters, after all this time? There is a strange attitude among most of us biologicals, a lot of us assume a certain infallibility in a decision made by machine intelligences. For as long as you had good relations with the Masters, there were a lot of Zhrau that took that to mean that being slaves must be … correct, somehow. That we must have brought it on ourselves, or deserved it, or … it was just our lot in life.”

“ _How can that even be possible_?” Yaphet asked, barely keeping his voice to a quiet level.

“Everyone that has ever been a slave has felt it, one way or another.” Phaing’s voice was so low that it barely registered on Isaac’s sensors. “You can’t help wondering…” Remembering that part of her life made her feel tired. Low on energy as she was, Phaing laid her head back on Isaac/Yaphet’s shoulder, something that both of them found disturbing.

“Say something!” Yaphet prompted the android.

“I hope that my people abandoned your ancient enemies because they understood that. However, I cannot be certain. I myself did not exist until five years ago, in this time frame.”

“That will have to do, I guess.” Phaing sighed. “Hey, what do you mean, _this_  time frame?”

“Hush.” Yaphet did not say this to get any petty revenge. “I need you quiet to hear…. yeah, something is happening.” The other two remained perfectly still and silent while Yaphet interpreted the vibrations reaching him through the ground. “Doors opening and closing, feet… lots of feet heading for the gates, and the gates are opening.”

“Are you sure?” Phaing looked to the gate, hearing and seeing nothing.

“Someone just dropped an iron bar, like the one on the gate.”

“Good enough.” She could see a shadow within the shadows, half of the gate swinging on it’s hinge. When Phaing started to move, Isaac held her back, and then clambered up into the driver’s seat himself. “Why?”

“I am bullet-proof, and I have observed your handling of this vehicle’s controls. We do intend to leave through that gate as the Captain’s party does, correct?”

“I wasn’t doing it very well!” She could not hold him back, so Phaing did not even try. She did pity the horse, Isaac’s rough guidance soon had the carriage moving in the same herky-jerk manner that the android himself moved with.

“Shall I uncover your head?” Yaphet asked.

“Phaing?” Isaac deferred to her judgement, there would be time later to get her back for that jelly-belly comment..

For now, all she had to say was; “Yes. We need to be sure.”

 

Mercer was wearing very nice yet ill-fitting coat made of red-brown leather with black fur lapels. Lt. Kitan had been given a robe to change into and a woolen wrap to wear over it. Bortus alone stayed with his prison dungarees, refusing everything that he had been offered except for the coiled-rope sandals that all three of them were given.

They had a small escort, only five of Shryock’s people were willing to witness this shameful moment. If more had come, there might have been a problem when the carriage had come up behind them at the gate. Confronted with equal numbers once the carriage arrived, the Guards backed away.

Mercer and Bortus had no idea what was happening, and the massive driver in armor was no help to them until the visor started to lift. Kitan had no idea either, until she saw small brown hands inside the carriage impatiently working to get rid of a cloak. When Phaing was free of it and leaning out of the doorway Kitan was already running towards her.The air whooshed out of her as Alara Kitan’s enthusiasm carried her right back into the carriage, far enough for Bortus to have room to climb in next to them.

There was no room left inside for Mercer, not that he would have climbed in before having a word with Isaac. When the carriage began moving forward again, Mercer was clinging to a hand-hold near where the door had been with the other hand on the luggage rail, and standing on the floor of the passenger compartment. He would have looked more dashing than he felt, if he weren’t staring at Isaac’s newly revealed face with such a dumbfounded expression on his own.

“Why are _you_ …. _how_ did…. _what_ is going on?”

Yaphet briefly covered Isaac’s face. “This is how! Hi Captain, how was your day?” He melted away before Mercer could answer him.

The Captain understood instantly and instead of any pleasantries, he asked; “How much time do you have left?”

“Assuming the 33 minute rule still holds, 29.9 minutes remain. Would you like to call for our extraction?” The last comm unit offered to Mercer, who was a little in awe of their teamwork.

“You guys are brilliant.”

Before Yaphet could say anything, Isaac cooly informed Mercer; “This was the Marshall’s idea.”

Mercer leaned out so that he could look into the cab. Phaing had Alara sitting in her lap, the two of them spooning happily right next to a grumpy Bortus. The women did not notice him, and if Phaing saw the sneer that Lalich gave her in passing, she could not have cared less. “I should have known.” Mercer said, mainly to himself, as they passed out of the gate and into the clear air outside of Shryock.

 

The carriage was only half a mile down the road when the whine of a shuttle’s approach could be heard. Isaac slowed the carriage to a halt, and Phaing was the first to dismount. She fired her last flare and the went to the horse, with Alara Kitan following close behind. The Xelayan was curious, about a great many things at that moment, and firstly; “What are you doing with that animal?”

Phaing removed the bridle first before going to work on the harness. “This fella has had a hard night, I’m gonna turn him loose. They will find him eventually, but after this I think we could _all_ use a day off.”

Alara tilted her head and smile, eyes to the sky. “You must like him, does he have a name?”

“Hmmm?” Phaing waited until everyone else had left the carriage before cutting the last harness strap. “Oh, I have no idea, I’ve just been calling him ‘that damned beast.’”

“Oh, I get it now.” Isaac spoke with an enthusiastic lilt which signaled a new understanding. “You have taken Admiral Ozawa’s pet name for you, and used it to name your pet.”

“Not my….” Phaing froze for a second, and then turned towards Isaac. “What did he just say?” The horse left them at a brisk trot. Without it’s weight to steady it and empty of passengers, the two-wheeled carriage up-ended, tipping over with gathering speed, crashing on it’s backside with a brief, rending crunch.  
“ _What_ did you just say?” Phaing’s eyes were brighter than they had been a moment before, and her tight little smile was not pleasant at all.

Even Alara was hesitating to put a hand on Phaing’s shoulder, so Mercer stepped up before Isaac could make things even worse. “Nothing that anyone will care about after today.” It may have been unfair, but he knew how to defuse her anger, and scooped her up in a good Bearhug. “I don’t care how you did it, but thank you for getting us out of there!”

Whatever come-back Phaing might have had for that was never delivered. As soon as Mercer let go of her, Kitan hugged her from behind, and then Bortus stepped up. He would not hug her, instead holding out his hand for her to shake. “You made them release us, and I even heard one of the Moclan call you a _Yslank_. That is our word for she-demon. You made them fear you. Congratulations.”

Her smile was not tight anymore, but it still had a wicked edge to it. “I _did_ , didn’t I?”

The shuttle landed on the field next to them so neatly that the ramp dropped right at the edge of the road. Mercer knew that Malloy must be at the helm. “Let’s get out of…. _what the hell_?”

There was a rending sound that made all of them look around. Yaphet and Isaac were parting ways before anyone like Malloy could start making jokes. Nobody noticed until Isaac started tearing the armor off his body. Yaphet had already left, assuming his usual blob-shape and rolling up the ramp. “What a relief! Okay, I’m done with being an android’s underwear, forever! Oh, and by the way; _we_ helped _too_!”

They all piled on board as quickly as they could, all of them afraid that the people of Shryock might change their minds at the last minute and start firing cannon-balls down the road at them. Malloy’s take-off pressed them firmly into their seats, and the pilot called out “Welcome back to civilization! Is everyone alright?”

Phaing was looking around, a curious expression on her face.

“What is it?” Kitan asked.

“Its just…. interesting. We are about to go back aboard that ship, and everything just goes back to the usual routine, yes?”

“Yes, fortunately for us!”

“Of course, but…”

Mercer didn’t like to interrupt the girls, especially when they were ‘having a moment’, but he had something to add; “I know of one thing that has changed. From now on, Marshal, you are my first choice for any away-team missions that come up.”

“Uh, captain?” Yaphet raised something that almost looked like a hand. “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but you might want to hear some of the details about what we did first…”

 

 

The trail of blue fire left by the shuttle’s passage was barely visible from the walls of Shryock, where all that were gathered there sighed with relief.

“I can’t believe that Captain swallowed all that.” Fran stood next to Burgomaster Vujanovatch, and next to the Burgomaster stood another Zirac who had come as a Union science officer, and decided to stay.

“Why should he not? For all he knows, we really were taken here by some strange version of the Zookeepers. As for ourselves, that Captain truly was sympathetic to people who want a fresh start.” Vujanovatch felt philosophical, as she often did when things were good. “He recently had an experience that made him want to let people have that, and so we can count ourselves to be lucky.”

Lalich joined them after a brisk jog up the stairs. “Lucky? Seven dead, and some of the injured may not survive. I do not count that as lucky.” She fired a scathing look at Fran. “Nor terribly clever, on our part.”

“Ladies!” Vujanovatch sighed, and leaned against her husband-to-be. “There are things that matter, and things that do not. What matters is that we have seen our unwanted visitors off in a way that will make them not want to return. There will be hearings, Union protocol and procedures and scandal will keep them preoccupied for an age and a half. We have all the time we need to come up with something more ‘clever’ for the next set of intruders. And what matters most is that our secret remains undiscovered. We never let it slip out that we all have psionic potential in our genes. Our breeding program is going well; our children will be true telepaths. And their children will rule this Galaxy.”

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXvkTuMyZpM


	20. Violence's aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This brings what came before it to a close and sets up what will follow later on.

There was, of course, an inquiry into what had happened in Shryock. Due to the remote location of the system this was done via long-range communications, with Admirals Halsey and Ozawa splitting the screen.

Phaing was not thrilled when she was warned that Ozawa would be taking part, so Mercer had taken her aside and told her about yet another Admiral who sometimes had something to say about what they were doing, and how unpleasant THAT fellow could be. “Given the options, we have drawn 2 of the better ones.”

“Understood.” was all Phaing said as everyone took their places at the table in the meeting room. Of the core group, only Lamar was absent, he had nothing much to do with the operations, and so was left in charge of the bridge. The rest of them took position at the table roughly equivalent to their stations on the Bridge; Malloy and Isaac were sitting opposite each other closest to the screen, Bortus and Kitan the next ones back with Grayson and Mercer beyond them. Being the odd ones out, Phaing sat at the rear flanked by Yaphet and Doc Finn.

“So, what have we learned today?” Halsey began affably enough after hearing everyone’s reports. Ozawa kept her face neutral yet stern, especially when she glanced at Grayson, and her eyes went to the commander frequently.

The question and the openness of it made everyone hesitate, except for Yaphet. “I learned a couple of new epitaphs for my species that I never heard of before.” Phaing winced. “No, your’s was okay, I kinda like it. But … Creepin’ Jesus? I don’t think I even what to know _what_ that one is supposed to mean.”

Both Admirals shifted their gazes, which meant that they were looking at each other’s screens. “I haven’t heard that one since….well, since before a lot of you were born.” Halsey shook his head, considering his words for a moment.

Ozawa nodded. “Another hint at what a strange world that is.”

“And what is to be done about it?” Phaing asked.

“That is not what this meeting is about.” Ozawa shot back. “The question to be resolved is how we should judge the actions of the Union fleet officers involved in this ridiculously violent affair.”

“Oh.” Phaing tilted her head forward, as if she was meeting a strong headwind. Her lips also twitched as she spoke. “ _Union_ officers? I was there too, so-“

Ozawa cut Phaing off before she could get started. “Yes, and we have already read your report. Did you even consult with the Captain of this ship before sealing your statement and sending it to us?”

“No, nor did I think that Admiral Zurnoctis would bounce it right back to you, but there we are. You have the unvarnished truth of all that I saw and did during a very problematic 36 hours. And by the way, if I had known that you would try to use it to hang any of my comrades out to dry, I would not have changed a single word. So where does that leave us now, eh?”

The admiral’s teeth showed as she said; “If you were one of MY officers-“

“Yeah, I know.” Phaing did not like being cut off, and quickly returned the favor. “I’d have to second guess my every word and action, wouldn’t I?”

“That will be enough!” Halsey rapped his desk once, and help up both hands, one to each of them.

But it wasn’t enough for Ozawa. “If you only knew….” and she said it with enough meaning to make Phaing wonder what the Admiral knew.

“Captain Mercer.” Halsey redirected the conversation before it could become a full-blown argument, “As a result of this incident, a dozen or more citizens of Shryock are dead and several times that number were wounded, thanks to the actions of this Zhrau that you put in charge of your contingency team, and the members of _your_  crew that were under her command. Do you really believe that her actions were necessary, let alone in keeping with the procedures and traditions of the Union?”

“Traditions?” Mercer smiled, but it was a weary one. “When have Union personnel ever been fooled this way? The natives were not ignorant of the Union, as our briefings said they would be. There is no established precedent for dealing with what was found there… a type of technology that eats technological devices? A primitive society with a plan already in place for dealing with us? Specifically with the Union, I should add, and very well informed about us, I might add.”

“Are they a colony of escaped criminals?” Halsey asked.

Mercer pointed to a sheaf of archaic papers in the middle of the table. “Those are affidavits from people who were in the Burgomaster’s hall when we were released. They sighed them and left a drop of their blood on the parchment… to that we can verify their DNA. We have tracked down a few already, and they do indeed appear to be people who slipped through the cracks. No serious criminals, but there was one that was being prosecuted under questionable circumstances, and another who’s sanity was suddenly called into question after publishing a book that the Xelayan authorities did not approve of.” He put his hand on the pile, and slid them all a symbolic inch towards the screens. “Most interesting or all is, none of these are from anyone that arrived on Shryock less than 12 years ago. The world seems to have had it’s fill of new arrivals. Children are their priority now.”

“And so we lost our Zirac to one that was already there.” Halsey put his hand to his forehead and gave it a good squeeze. “And what about Doctor Tennant? You have not mentioned the other explorer that you were sent to fetch.”

“Yes, about that.” His face went solemn as Mercer reached down and gently set a bottle made of hand-blown glass on the table. It was filled with some sort of grey sand. “This was the last item that was given to me as we left Shryock, and it needs to be sent to Dr. Tennent’s family.”

“What is it?” This question came from Admiral Ozawa, altho she had a sneaking suspicion that she should already know what was.

“Dr. Tennent’s ashes.”

It was such a pathetic little thing, that flawed and slightly misshapen bottle full of dust, but was far more substantial than an official letter of condolences full of words that had been used millions of times before.

That should have been the end of the discussion on the amount of violence that had taken place in Shryock. Ozawa persisted because she thought that Greyson had gotten off lightly at her Court Marshal, and because this was one of her few chances to chastise Phaing. “You couldn’t have known.” She said to Grayson, and to Phaing; “By your own report, you didn’t know!”

“Oh yes I did.” Phaing nearly purred in response. “I know that sort of people very well indeed, they are the kind of people that think nothing of initiating the hostile use of force. That is exactly what they did, and it was what made them wrong. _You_ people never do that! You still win most of the time, and that makes you admirable, but your first contact with people never starts with off with you using your considerable power to push people around. Why do you think we love you so much?”

Phaing’s eyes were on the people sitting at the table as she said that last sentence, and so she missed seeing the Admirals glance at each other, speechless. She did see Isaac nod at her, and knew that they had reached an accord. Phaing smiled at him, and then at Alara. The smile she received in return was tinged with a certain sadness.

Uh oh…

“Very well then.” Ozawa went on crisply while Halsey pondered the Zhrau. “While all of this was going on, the Zhrau have had their first encounter with the Krill. Phaing, you will be pleased to know that they scored an overwhelming victory. Your Scout ships lured a squadron worth of Krill warships into an ambush, and destroyed all seven without any loss to themselves.”

“ _NO_ losses?” Mercer asked.

“Only seven?” Phaing blew a sharp breath out of the side of her mouth. “Our Squadrons should have had at least 20 ships there. Not much of a haul ... but still, not bad for an opening move.”

“Your people were also disappointed. There was also a Krill ship at the edge of sensor range that managed to escape. It seems that the Krill have a small advantage in that field.”

“No losses for the Zhrau?” Mercer asked again.

“No a single crewman.” Ozawa confirmed.

“Any Krill survivors?” Grayson asked, dreading the answer.

“None.” Ozawa’s eyes, and all others, went to Phaing. The Zhrau barely noticed, rubbing her knuckles on the table, a little depressed that she had missed such a grand battle. When she looked up and noticed the attention fixed on her, she misunderstood. “Well, no, isn’t it a bit unusual for anyone to survive losing their ship in a battle like that? From what I have heard those Krill ships are big and tough, it would require a serious pounding to ensure that they were out of the fight.”

Ozawa gave Grayson a curious look, and Grayson shook her head. _No, she does not know about the children, please don’t tell her!_

Ozawa showed her humanity by letting it go. She had been briefed on Phaing’s personality, and the Admiral herself had no idea how she could have explained the subject to the little Zhrau fireball. However, someday, _somebody_ would have to take care of that, and the longer it was put off….

“We are going to be returning you to that part of the frontier someday soon.” Halsey informed Mercer.

“That is a long way from where we are now.”

“Yes it is, and there will be stops along the way. Your ship is also due for some upgrades. I am letting you know about the Krill now so that you can do some planning ahead of time.” Halsey smiled and tipped his head to Phaing. “We have heard that some of you are gifted when it comes to that sort of thing.”

Phaing smiled back. “Just doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Thanks, the heads-up is appreciated.”

Grayson and Mercer both noticed Phaing’s use of ‘we’, and so they also smiled.

 

After the meeting broke up, Alara took Phaing to one side and mustered all the grace she could as she tried to explain something … something that Phaing had already guessed at; “You are leaving.”

“Yes, but only for a few months!” Alara nearly panicked, wondering who could have told Phaing about this. Had she guessed it for herself? “I have too… well, I don’t HAVE to, but I saw what happens to Xelayans that spend too many years in a low-gravity environment. I was the strongest person on Shryock, by far, and I don’t want to lose that! I…. its…”

“Its what sets you apart? Well, there is rather more to it than that, from where I am standing, but I’m not Chief of Security on a ship that gets into more trouble than a drunk Taxi Driver.” Alara could have hugged Phaing right then and there, but the Zhrau went on to the inevitable question that Alara had been dreading; “When do we leave?”

Phaing was ready to drop everything and just go, in spite of everything. Alara could not meet her eyes when she said; “ _You_ can’t.”

It was just as well that Alara wasn’t looking, she would have seen the special gleam that Phaing’s eyes held for her going away. “Oh, so that’s it, then?”

“Your embassy had to pull out, relocated on an orbital station, just like everyone else. There were unanticipated problems for all the Zhrau when it came to acclimation. It may also be related to the fact that only 40% of my ancestors survived their first three years marooned on that world.” Alara did look up then, to see Phaing’s reaction.

“Oh…. hell… not great odds, eh?” The gleam was still gone, but Phaing’s expression allowed for the possibility that it might return someday.

Maybe…

“Yeah, you knew it would have to be something serious to make a dozen Zhrau retreat, right?” Alara tried to smile and fight down tears at the same time. She succeeded about halfway with both.

Phaing hugged Alara and steered her towards a quiet corner, one where there would be nobody walking nearby and pretending not to notice the scene that was happening. “Look, its not going to be for long, right?”

“Six Months.”

Phaing’s arms dropped and she took a step back. “Half a _year_?” It only took her a second or two to figure out why. “Oh, you have been away for a long time, right?”

“Five years.”

“Uh huh.” Phaing shrugged. “I should have guessed. But still … damn.”

Alara watched Phaing thinking, coming up with ideas and discarding them in a handful of seconds. She also saw something she did not like behind those dark eyes; acceptance. Phaing was taking this better than she was herself. Instead of making her angry, Alara felt a flash of intuition. “This has happened to you before.”

Phaing’s eyes narrowed for a second. “I have never …. oh!” Her eyes and face relaxed as she understood what Alara meant. The best thing about this relationship was how both women made the other _think,_ instead of leap to an angry reaction. “Oh, yeah, well… sooner or later, I rub everyone the wrong way.”

She knew Phaing well enough to see past the casual way she made that admission, and for a moment Alara decided against leaving. People have been leaving her all her life, she was _expecting_ this!

But she could not stop and change course, not after telling Phaing why she had to go. Phaing had understood why it because it was important. If Alara changed her mind, for any reason, it would make Alara seem less important, in and of herself. There was also the fact that Phaing was taking it so well, leaving Alara just the ‘out’ that she needed. At that point, it would have required more courage to stay than to leave, and there is a limit to everyone’s courage. “You have always rubbed me in exactly the right way, don’t you ever think otherwise, okay? And when I get back...“

“When you get back it will be a hell of a party! But meanwhile, how much time have we got? I don’t intend to waste a minute of it!”

Phaing never asked if they should remain exclusive to each other, if Alara was comfortable maintaining their relationship long-distance or any other questions of that kind. She threw herself into the moment with all she had, and when it came time to say goodbye she did it with dignity.

There is a limit to _everyone’s_ courage, after all.

 

Admirals Halsey and Ozawa kept the link between their own screens active after everyone from the Orville had signed off.

“She was just as disappointed as the rest of the Zhrau were, at first.” Ozawa mused. “A victory like that, at no cost to themselves, and all they can think about is how many more of the Krill they should have destroyed.”

Halsey sighed, slumped back in his chair and looking grim. “I suppose they wanted to announce themselves by eliminating half the Krill fleet. What they have lost is the element of surprise, but what they have gained is a fearsome reputation for themselves in a part of the Quadrant that had never heard of the Zhrau before.”

“Well, thank goodness they are on our side then.” Ozawa flashed him a wry smile that had no life at all behind it.

Halsey did not even notice the smile, let alone return it in any way. After a long moment, he asked with an utterly flat calm; “We can’t beat them, can we?”

Had anyone else asked that question so bluntly, Ozawa would have been furious with them. In Halsey’s case, it wasn’t just his rank that held her back. It was a serious question with grave implications for billions of people, and it deserved a serious answer. “Our fleet outnumbers their ships by about seven to one…” The way Halsey raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips made Ozawa drop the preamble. “No, we can’t. Not yet.”

Her blunt words cut right through Halsey’s funk and made him sit up. “You are sure of that … why? Because of all the Intelligence they got from our Data Core?”

“That is only part of it. It will take use at least a year to recover from the damage that did to us, which is why I said ‘yet’ just now, and it will only be a partial recovery… regarding our situation opposed to the Zhrau. Hypothetically speaking, of course.” Ozawa’s Catlike face tightened a little. “But that isn’t what has you worried just now, is it?”

Halsey shook his head. He said nothing, but motioned with his hand for Ozawa to continue.

“It is the people themselves that are our greatest worry. This 'Phaing' person has proven to be startlingly capable, and now we have evidence that she is hardly unique among her people. Our people have observed them, on our ships and the mission to Erriau have seen it also. Their officer training and selection process is entirely divorced from anything political. The Zhrau regard their military might as being so important that they don’t let anything interfere with the well-being of their warriors. Their status in Zhrau society is very high and there is keen competition for those that want to make a career of it. Only the best and most brilliant make it… it is as if they have _institutionalized_ excellence over the centuries.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that if we have to face them, we could find that every Zhrau admiral is a Nelson, every general is a Caesar, and every fighter pilot could be a bloody Red Baron.” Ozawa paused for a second before adding. “You suspected that might be the case when you asked me about them, didn’t you?”

“We have to buy time. We have to play this carefully, grant concessions and keep them engaged in every sort of diversion we can come up with. They publicly claim to be enamored of the Union, lets give their people plenty to see of it.” Halsey was fully animated now, tapping away on a data pad while talking to Ozawa at the same time. “If we know all this about our relative strengths, then they know it too. They have since before they contacted us. What we need to find out now is why they didn’t use that advantage, and why such a warlike people are really so interested in _us_ , of all people.”

 

At that same moment Admiral Zurnoctis was wrapping up her report to Duke Argaelion, also via screens that connected distant parties.

“While I will admit that Phaing may not be the best when it comes to picking up subtle clues, she was emphatic on this point. The Zhrau she questioned gave no sign that anyone at Shryock was transported there by anything but a starship.”

“Another lead turns to dust. Well, thank you, Admiral.” The Duke waved a hand at her to assure the Admiral that she was not being held to blame. “Its just one more Rabbit-hole that turned out to be a dead end, but there is another. The great revelation hinted at in that Data Core. In fact, you should keep this wave open just a bit longer, I think you will want to see this.” He tapped his desk and said, “Send him in.”

Commissioner Jirot entered the room and blinked at the screen showing Zurnoctis’s face. “Oh, so this is why I was kept waiting?”

“I do hope you bring better news than I just received.” Argaelion said with a touch of asperity in his voice.

Doubly miffed at the tone both men were using, the Zhrau Admiral snorted at Jirot. “Aren’t you supposed to be on Terra?”

“I was! Delightful place, that over-sized moon of theirs keeps the climate very regular… if a trifle boring. Our embassy there is all set and will be running just fine without me.” Jirot sat next to Argaelion’s desk and opened his briefcase. “This is an exact reproduction of a book that was published a dozen years before the first genuine rumors of extra-terrestrial visitation began to circulate on that world.”

The Duke accepted the book with all due respect. Jirot had traveled a long way to put this item in his hands, instead of trusting the information to a data-stream. It was not simply the security involved, Jirot was determined to impress everyone with the information he carried, and the solid reality of an actual book was helpful for that. “An exact copy, you say? How hard was it to find?”

“Not hard at all, it was given to my secretary as a gift. Heh, relax, not by a Human! They are still deathly afraid of embarrassing themselves, this came from a large-headed Lieutenant on our security detail.”

The Admiral asked; “What kind of book is it?”

“A heavy one.” Argaelion huffed. “This does not look like Modern Standard Anglic.”

“No, it is mid twentieth century _English_. What you have there is a novel written as if it is a history, one of their most popular books ever. See, the tittle here is ‘The Hobbit’, and the author is designated as Tolkien.”

“An entertainment? What are you wasting our time with?” Zurnoctis sounded as if she was just getting warmed up, she was the sort of person who enjoyed revenge now matter how petty. She had never been very fond of Jirot in the first place, and his cavalier entrance rankled her.

The Duke calmly examined the book, and found a dog-eared page while Zurnoctis sneered at Jirot. Opening the book to an illustrated page, he gasped and studied the drawing closely. He glanced at Jirot, and then said “Admiral, you should see this. Zoom your viewer in if you can.” He flipped the book around and stood it on the desk for her to see.

Zurnoctis took a long look, and said nothing for a moment. She was not stunned, there were just too many things to say at once, and she had no idea where to start.

“ _Elves_ , that’s the word they use.” Jirot explained. “If they really existed on Earth, they must have died out some time ago, at least two millenia, perhaps more. Even by then they must have become shy and elusive, indicating a declining population. The only two places where such legends are recorded are north-central Europe and the islands off south east Asia… two of the dampest and most heavily forested places on the planet.”

Jirot had just described the ideal environment for Zhrau, but Zurnoctis ignored that as she stared at the drawing. “There is a resemblance, but… I don’t know.”

“I could be Zhrau as we once were. Before the Masters came and...  you know.” Jirot was also looking at the drawing now. “It makes one wonder about what we might have lost along the way. They look so-“

The Duke let the book drop flat on the desk with with a hard thump. “Let’s not get sentimental here! You know what this means, you know WHY this is important. You are going right back there with an expanded team of… oh, call them archeologists, or Geologists, that is close enough.” His voice sharpened enough to compel the full attention of both Zhrau. “This is the best proof we have that what we are looking for is indeed on the Human home world. If any trace remains on that world, even a fragment of a Gate, then we can rebuild link-lane technology!”

 “Yes.” Zurnoctis stroked her arms with sharp fingernails. “Travel between worlds without starships, instantaneous transport from one planet’s surface to another!”

Argaelion nodded slowly to her, this Wolfish grin a mirror of her own. “Yes. Cherish the thought, but bury it deeply and speak no more of it. Even our own people do not know the _true_ reason why we maintain a standing army of millions, and the ability to quintuple that number overnight. It is best that they do not, lest they have as many sleepless nights as we have…. wondering if some other power will master the Aether and it’s wyrm-holes before we do.”

“And… when we do?”

“When we do, my dear Jirot, those bald-headed Zoo Keepers will be the first to fall! The last remnants of state-sponsored slavery will be wiped from this arm of the Galaxy, and all their elaborate orbital defenses count for nothing.”

“Oh no, not for nothing. They will become ours, along with all the rest of their technology!” Zurnoctis dared to remind him.

“Of course. And also for us, for the first time since we eliminated the Masters …” Argaelion leaned back in his chair, propped his feet up on the desk and took a flask out if his jacket. “… true leisure, decadence and the peace of mind to truly enjoy it. Oh, and Admiral, given what is at stake, I think you can forget about whatever worries you had about the Field Marshall. I doubt very much that Phaing will become too attached to those humans, certainly not enough to compromise our efforts. Agreed?”

“Agreed. Liberating slaves is one of the greatest motivations of her life. Zurnoctis out.” She broke the communication off before Argaelion or Jirot could ask what the other things were. One of those other things was the well-being of children, something that reminded the Admiral of a recent faux-pas of her own. She had apologized and attempted to cover herself immediately, but the looks that the Captain of Phaing’s ship had given her when she had spoken that word… Zurnoctic knew he would never forget it. And even if he had, the destruction of so many Krill ships would have reminded him, and that one word would have come back to him.

That word was ‘bonus’, and Zurnoctis had the chilling premonition that it could cause her trouble someday.

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlyTj_bgMFc

 


	21. Interludes, the second one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This bit explains some of the more normal things that go on, and a break from the usual emergency-driven pace aboard so many Starships.

Lt. Commander Bortus was spending a great deal of time alone, and not by choice.

The strain of his relationship with his mate had reached the breaking point, and rather than allow their relationship to end completely they had agreed on a trial separation. Clyden had felt too isolated among the crew of a ship that obviously favored Bortus in whatever dispute was happening between the couple, there was really no arguing with that fact. What tore at Bortus was the equally obvious fact that his child would be leaving too. The Orville could be a dangerous place to be, and with no other Moclan aboard except for his busy father, it would also be a lonely one.

Lt. Alara Kitan had left a few days before, and so it was that Bortus found himself drawing closer to the only other person aboard that understood how miserable he was feeling.

Phaing was surprised that Bortus had noticed her depression, until he explained that being stoic was not that same as oblivious. The Moclan was as sensitive to the feelings of others as anyone else, he just wasn’t very good at dealing with his own. As it turned out, Phaing was somewhat similar. They became what was known as Drinking Buddies, passing long hours that would have been lonely and miserable otherwise, and finding comfort in giving each other advice that they were terrible at taking themselves. They also learned how tolerant each other was of the truth.

“You find me repulsive, don’t you?” she asked him one night over coffee and Amaretto.

Bortus was taken aback, for a moment. “Oh, _physically_ , you mean? Yes, somewhat.”

“Glad to hear it, and likewise!” Phaing was clearly relieved to be spending time with someone who had no sexual attraction to her, and opened up to Bortus as she had to few others. With a little proding he could find out things about her past, even her childhood… and those revelations were enough to blow his own personal misery right out of his head, for days at a time. For example; the regeneration implants had been experimental when her owner and “installed” them. Without telling the eight year-old slave the what or why of the situation, Malfaedor had Phaing strapped down to a table and chopped off her left leg just above the knee. She even showed him where the leg had grown back, a mark so faint he would never have seen it if she had not pointed it out to him. Contrary to what some would say, Moclan do have an imagination, it is how they became so adept at manufacturing and intending new weaponry. Wondering what an experience like that must have been like… he had been so distracted the next day that everyone in the bridge had asked him if he was alright.

Eventually he stopped asking such questions and bottled up his increasing disquiet about her, and it was inevitable that Bortus’s sex-free company eventually wore thin on Phaing. Sooner or later, she had to to move on.

Phaing served as point on many Away Teams, partly due to her attention to detail, and partly because there were a lot of people who wanted to have the chance to rescue _her_  just to switch things around. Once, on a derelict ship Malloy and Lamar went too far and were rewarded with wounds that that  confined the both of them to sickbay for half a week. That was when Phaing discovered that both of them were attracted to her, and had been waiting for their chance ever since Alara had left.

“Oh _Hell_ no!” She protested. “Don’t you dare make me chose between you, and don’t you _DARE_ tempt me to become the thing that rips apart your friendship!” That was sensible enough, and had nearly ended it right there, but Phaing being Phaing, she had to add; “Unless you both want to share me at the same time, don’t even think about it!”

So of course, they thought about it.

They were still thinking about it two months later when fate intervened. For a change, it did not involve danger or violence or even any personal angst. It was simply one of those long and very dull days at a station that offered no diversions worth leaving the ship for while a routine hull resurfacing was being seen to by a legion of ‘bots….

 

John Lamar’s main hobby that year was artistic; the diamond-dust that he had acquired was used to make portraits that were regarded as either fantastic or just trash… a judgment that had as much to do with the viewer’s taste as much as it did with the final product. So it was with some reluctance that he showed his art to anyone at all. When Phaing stopped by for a visit he’d allowed her to see it because he knew that she would be honestly critical of his work and entirely non-judgmental. The only way he could find a colder analysis would have been if he’d let Isaac see it, and that just wasn’t going to happen.

While they waited for Lt. Malloy to return with some beer and entertainment disks Phaing leafed through a collection of plates. She said nothing as she flipped through them, glass plates that were mounted on a Lazy-Susan type of turntable. When prompted, she murmured “not sure what to think yet” and bent over to peer at his work from different angles.

John tried not to hover. To hide his growing anxiety, he went to the bathroom, and when he came back he saw that Phaing had opened a cabinet to go on to the next collection. He nearly ran across the room, but was too late to prevent he from seeing -

“Ensign Turco!”

He’d done two nudes and a full-face portrait of her when they had been dating, and never shown them to anyone but her. “Damnit. Please don’t tell anyone about those!”

“Why not? These are your best work, right up there with the one you did of this ship and the big one of Ras Mentis.” John had the same opinion of his works, so instead of closing the cabinet, he waited for Phaing to say more. This time, she had plenty to say. “Very good, you even made this so that I can see it without moving my head too much. But it does not work out all that well, especially these two.” Phaing meant the nudes. One was a close view from the navel up, the other was a long view of Turco sprawled on the floor and looking as stoned as she actually was at the time.

“What do you mean by ‘work’?” John had suspected she was right, for reasons he could not put into words.

Phaing put her finger on it without even trying; “Seems like she was nervous, she didn’t really want to do this. You could sense that, and it spoiled your aim. It stopped being fun, didn’t it?”

“You…. wow!” John took a step back and shook his head. “I had no idea you could see things like that.” If he had, he might not have let her look at  _any_ of his pictures. “Now that I think about it, yeah… I think you nailed it. You were right about how it’s done, too. Your ‘aim’ has to be dead-on for this to come out right.”

“Can you show me? I’ve never seen this sort of thing before.”

“Sure. If Malloy takes any wrong turns at the station, it could be hours before he gets back. If he gets caught scrounging, maybe longer.” The kit was the size of a small table, mostly covered by a blank panel of glass. “I can frost or smoke some parts of the glass, but the real challenge is getting the various grades of diamond dust in the right places and making them align the way I want to. Even with all the high-tech tools, it is very delicate work. I have to wear a mask over my nose & face to make sure that my breathing does not ruin what I just did.”

“Sounds like it can be frustrating … how long does it take?”

“Depends.” John sighed, seeing nothing ready to come to life on the blank glass. “Sometimes it can take all day if I make enough mistakes. Sometimes it all comes together and I’m done in less than an hour, ready to do more. _Wanting_ to do more, and that’s why I keep trying. When it comes together like that, its… hey, what are you doing?”

Phaing was working at the buttons of her uniform jacket. “Volunteering to be your next model. Why, you got something better to do just now?”

“Wait!”

“For what?”

What indeed? John did an inward double-take. _Why would I argue with THIS?_  However, just to make sure, he asked; “You want me to make a picture of you… like I did of her?”

“Yup. You put a lot of work into those, more detail than any of the rest. I’m willing and I want to help you get on track. Hell, I’ll even smile if that will help.” She went back to the buttons.

“Okay! Great, thanks, but… not in here.”

“Huh?”

“Much as I’d love to see it, your clothes scattered all over the place would look a little… um, _unprofessional_ if someone walks in. And lets face it-“

“Gotcha, this is the Orville. Someone is bound to walk in.”

“Right. So, there is a little closet in the bathroom and a robe in it. Why not go in there and hang your stuff up in there and come back out with the robe on.”

“If you say so.” Phaing shrugged and headed that way. “Humans and your little rituals, so cute!”

John’s fingers flew as he readied his gear and loaded up several different grades of dust. Size and opacity were the only ways to grade what he had, everything else was a matter of luck and skill. Even after a year of experimenting, he still was not sure if he had the skill to produce something that would ‘work’.

Phaing came back out wearing the robe before he had had any time to consider how to pose her. “I…. _shoot_ … where to put you?” He looked around the room, and the only thing that inspired him was the fact that the windows were clear of bots and facing away from the station.

“Here?” Following his gaze, she went to the window. John’s room was blessed with wide windowsills what could serve as shelf-space. “Yeah, this will work fine.”

“Will you be comfortable enough to stay still for a while?”

“Holding still is easy, just relax and tighten muscles in alternating groups.” She pulled a chair in closer and used it as a step, and as a place to dump the robe. John let out a low whistle, he couldn’t help it, and Phaing was encouraged by his reaction. She even smiled and nodded at him, doing a slow turn so that he could see all of her from various angles. “Glad you like what you see. I know there isn’t a whole _lot_  to work with here, but -“

“Perfect.” John said without moving. “I know you always blow people off when they tell you this, but you really are gorgeous.” And while he was speaking, Phaing saw a change come over him. He was not coming-on to her, that initial blaze of lust was replaced by different kind of passion. John directed her to pose sitting on the sill with her right shoulder against the glass and right leg bent, left arm dangling and left leg braced on the chair. John spent a good five minutes coaching her as she positioned herself in what appeared to be a perfectly casual slouch, and in fact calculated to the last centimeter to place her the way he wanted. Phaing had no idea that art could be so scientific, so precise, and took his direction very seriously. For his part, John was relieved that she followed direction so well, he never had to get up from his palate to guide her. This was important because where he was seated would be the only point of view he would be working from. Once she was settled in he knew he was ‘in the zone’ and with any luck this would turn out to be one of his better ones. “Okay, I’ll do the face last so don’t worry about that. Just don’t move your hair, there sure is an awful lot of it and … does it curl like that naturally?”

“Yes, and a few days in a very humid environment is always enough to drive me completely batshit!”

 _Great, as if we needed_ **another** _thing that has that effect on you_? Aloud he asked; “What, does it kink up on you, or do you start to look like Shirely Temple?”

To figure out what he was talking about, Phaing called up an image on the viewer, and sneered at it. “That’s almost as bad. No WAY did people ever deliberately try to make themselves look like that!”

“They did, for a little while.” She couldn’t help snicker. “Did you really ask why most girls on this ship have ‘helmet-hair’? I’ll be Alara didn’t … oh, sorry.” John bent lower and focused in his work, or at least tried to give the impression that he was.

Phaing rolled her eyes. After a while, she said; “Its alright. If you are curious, ask away. This chit-chat helps me stay relaxed.”

“Well, I guess everyone was curious, but it is pretty obvious that you two are no longer a pair. And… I’m sorry. We all feel for you, even if half the guys on this ship are walking around with a cubby because they think they have a shot at you two again.”

Phaing let out a short, sharp laugh before she got herself under control again, and checked her pose. Then she gave him a sad little smile. “Well, you know how it is with these things. At first you are talking to each other long-distance every day, then every three days, The a week goes by and one of you is surprised to hear from the other.”

“Sorry.”

“For what? She’s having a fling or two, and good for her! I just hope she doesn’t get all guilt-tripy about it. Alara isn’t good at handling doubt. What about you and Lt. Turco, What happened there?”

John thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head. “You know, I honestly have no idea. Not a clue. I also have no idea what I am going to do with your face.”

“Assuming you mean on the dust-board… maybe I should just shut up for a while.”

“Its not just that. You have a very expressive face, so it keeps changing right along with whatever is on your mind. Maybe… ah, I know!” He got up from the floor and pulled a glass sculpture out of a cabinet. Placing it on a high shelf not far from her, he told Phaing; “Alright, just look at that for a while. I won’t say a word.”

Phaing’s face remained stable just long enough for John to finish, and he had to admit that it was one of his better jobs. His model had been distracted and gazed curiously at the sculpture, adding just the right touch to her pose. Enchanting, perhaps that was the right word for it, she certainly seemed to be-“

“What the fuck _is_  that thing supposed to be?”

So much for enchanting. The feminine fascination with such creatures had skipped right over Phaing’s head. “Its a Dragon.”

“Must be awfully tiny to be able to fly with wings like that. More of your own work?”

A voice sounded from the entrance, asking why the door was still locked. Phaing recognized Malloy’s voice. “Come on it!” John started to rise and reach for a robe at the same time, until Phaing snapped her fingers and motioned him back down. Other than that, she didn’t move a muscle, holding her pose as she said. “Your done, aren’t you? Stay right there, and face your first art-critic. I want to see what he has to say when he can compare your work to the real thing.” John started to protest, so she added. “Yeah, I know it’s just Gordon, but you never know when somebody might turn all brilliant on you.”

“Hey, I heard that, and I’ll you have know -“ Malloy nearly dropped the beer when he crossed from the entryway to the room they were in. “Whoa-ho! I didn’t mean… didn’t _you_  just say to come in?”

“I can’t hold still much longer!” Phaing hissed at him. “Hurry up and take a look.” She nodded to John’s board. “You too, Commander.”

Malloy wasn’t alone. Bortus snorted out a harsh grunt and immediately regretted his decision to partake in this experiment in ‘male bonding, human-style’.

John quickly placed a glass cover over his sandbox, and then breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled his mask off. For the first time since he had started, he was able to sit back and take a good look at what he had done.

Gordon Malloy was impressed, and let out a little whoop as he slapped John on the shoulder. “Well damn, you got it! It even has the three-D effect,” he weaved back and forth to look at it from different angles, “sometimes they look like nothing if you are at the wrong angle.”

“You have mastered your art form.” Bortus also viewed it from different angles, leaning in close as if he were going to scrutinize every particle of dust.. “Your persistence over the last year has paid off.”

Phaing held her pose until she saw what she wanted to see, and clapped her hands together as she leapt from the windowsill. “They are looking at what you did instead of me, so even _you_  gotta admit it’s good!” She bounced over to have a look herself. “Huh…. oh, no wonder. You made me look better than I actually do.”

Bortus abruptly straightened up. Something that he had been keeping bottled up inside him came to the boiling point at that moment. “I disagree! A colorless representation, while haunting and evocative, can never do the living justice. And while this self-depreciating manor of yours may be charming in some small way, I have come to find it annoying and unrealistic! If you ever want me to see you as a balanced and whole person, you will put the it behind you and stop believing what some psychotic slave-master told you about yourself when you were a child.”

There was a long moment of silence following Bortus’s outburst. John was reexamining his work, mulling over words like ‘haunting’ and ‘evocative’. Gordon’s jaw dropped as he stared at Bortus, he’d never known that words like that could come from this Moclan, _any_  Moclan. Phaing was glaring at Bortus, standing on the balls of her feet with clenched fists. “Ya know, I don’t think I’ll be holding back at all, next time we have one of our little sparing matches.”

“See that you don’t.” Bortus turned and marched out of the room. “Tomorrow at midday, the sim-room. Oh, excuse me!”

Bortus had nearly run down the Captain on his way out. “The door was open, is everything… whoa!” Phaing standing there naked was naturally the first thing he noticed, the second thing was the murderous look she was giving Bortus’s back. Mercer reached back and slapped the door shut before Phaing could go charging after him. When the little Zhrau noticed Mercer her mood instantly changed. Phaing snapped her fingers and waved him over, pointing excitedly at something that had fully absorbed the attention of both Lieutenants. Lamar didn’t even know the Captain had entered the room until he noticed Mercer leaning over his shoulder. The Captain let out a low whistle, understanding what was going on in here at last, and impressed with what he saw. “That’s some damn fine work.”

With some haste, John attached a small hose to the glass cover and turned the switch on the small device it was attached to. Slowly, a white mist began to obscure the portrait.

“Hey!” Mercer and Malloy said at the same time.

“Sorry, but I have to set it, one little bump and it will all be ruined. That mist will hold it all in place, and then cover it in a transparent coat, like the others.”

“Makes sense.” Mercer looked up at Phaing, the nearness of her bare body made his blood-pressure and his awkwardness rise at the same rate. “I suppose this was your idea?”

She winked. “If it was, will it keep these guys out of trouble?”

“Whaddaya mean ‘ _if_ ’?”

“Gordon, relax. I’m just glad I didn’t walk in on an orgy or…. something…” All eyes went to Phaing.

Like everyone else, she glanced down at her body, and then rolled her eyes. “I guess the artistic freedom portion of the festivities is over.” While Gordon snickered, she went to where her robe had been discarded and put it back on. “Shall we commence with the celebratory drinking phase?”

“Gotcha covered.” Azrealian Beer was a rare coupe, even for a gifted scrounger like Lt. Malloy, and he had acquired three six-packs of the stuff. That was more than enough to get all four of them plastered. “And for entertainment I got a few things, but you guys are gonna stop me with the very first choice.” He held up a disk in a steel case that was somewhat the worse for wear. “A original copy of the last game of the 2099 World series.”

John stood up and clapped his hands together. “The Yankees vs the Sendai Eagles?”

“That’s the one! Only the most famous game since the 1951 showdown between the Dodgers and the Giants.”

“Good job finding that.” Mercer took the case and opened it. “Looks like its in good shape, too. Boy, the game sure got wild when they opened the the World Series up to the whole world. I don’t think I even want to ask…”

Mercer looked to Phaing, and the rest of them did as well. Gordon asked; “You have no idea what we are talking about, do you?”

“Hardly the first time. But you boys are so excited, it must be awesome.” She glanced at the trio of suddenly still faces. “What?”

“Have you ever heard of Baseball?”

Phaing separated the two words in her mind and shook her head. “It sounds like some kind of sport.” She said it with all the enthusiasm that women normally show for sports; tepid yet ready to go along with it the boys for their sakes.

Mercer took her aside and explained the game to her while John rearranged the room and Gordon got the beer and snacks ready. Phaing’s eyes lit up before the Captain was done explaining the basics. “You mean… one player at a time steps up to take on the entire enemy team, alone? Say no more, I’m in.” As they were all settling in, she had to ask; “But, why aren’t we playing this in the sim-room? We _could_ do this ourselves.”

“Are you kidding?” John sat down next to her and passed Phaing a beer he’d just opened. “Nobody before or since could steal bases like Takahashi.”

“And no man alive could do what George Dancing-Crow did when-“

“Hey! Gordon, the _both_ of you, stop it!” Mercer protested. “Don’t give it all away before it starts. All I ever saw were sims, and not very good ones.”

Phaing would remember that night for the rest of her life. She was able to see human males at their most relaxed and their most exuberant states in turns, and it was all in good fun. Best of all, there were no emergencies, nothing at all happened to interrupt their fun, fun that she was drawn into without having to think twice about what she was doing. When that fellow named Takahashi ran into a bat that had slipped from the grip of one of his own team members and kept right on running to win the game 10-9, she cheered just as loudly as the men around her.

After that, and after the beers, she had felt far too comfy to leave with the Captain. She indulged in another round of drinks, and then the boys had indulged themselves in ways that Phaing found perfectly enjoyable. 

Before it was over, she knew it would probably never happen again. As the drugs an euphoria began to wear off the men began to become self-concious ... something that Phaing almost never suffered from. She was able to recognize it, and make use of it; "Well, I suppose I won't have to worry about any gossip getting around the ship about all this." And before the boys could even start getting upset about how casually she said that, she added; "Right, so given that... what is the craziest thing you ever wanted to do with a girl? _Nah_ , don't tell me, _show_ me."

Crude as she might be with her words, she was perfectly serious and very willing to experience whatever they thought up. It did indeed turn out to be a night that none of the three of them would ever talk about later, but not out of shame. There are certain things that rightfully stay within the little group that created it.

There was also the fact that Phaing behaved and spoke to both John and Gordon afterwards in exactly they same way she had before; still friendly but without giving them any leverage over her or acting as if she was embarrassed by their shared intimacy. Eventually, both men started to wonder if it had actually happened the way they remembered it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I will be leaving this and starting something new now.
> 
> Something easier and cleaner, perhaps...


End file.
